New Patent — Experience is Everything
People increasingly take it for granted that they will be able to access a range of connected experiences — whether it’s in-app voice calling, streaming media, simple web browsing, or social interaction — without being troubled by network performance issues.
So when the network doesn’t deliver the required customer experience, those customers will often vote with their feet and jump to a competing provider.
The relationship between network quality and customer loyalty is well established and it’s getting easier to change networks every day. In the UK recently it was announced that customers can now switch networks simply by sending a single text message to their provider.
Communications service providers are always looking for ways to protect and improve the customer experience they deliver and at Pareteum we are committed to helping our customers do just that, in as cost-effective a manner as possible.
We were recently granted a patent which relates directly to the issue of network performance, and which shows how taking a holistic view of the end user’s connected customer experience can be highly beneficial. What this software patent lacks in a snappy title (‘Apparatus and Method for Steering Wireless Network Connections Based Upon Quality Assessments’) it more than makes up for in positive impact on the customer experience.
Everywhere smartphone users go they are surrounded by wireless networks. Not just the mobile networks they pay for service, but countless disparate Wi-Fi networks which may offer them both a cheaper and higher quality experience, depending on location and usage. But accessing these networks can be difficult, and users have little way of knowing what kind of quality of experience they will get if and when they are connected.
Automatically connecting users to Wi-Fi solves the problem of complexity in accessing a connection but it does not address the subsequent experience.
Our new patent allows devices to be automatically moved from mobile networks to Wi-Fi networks – but only when specific quality of experience thresholds are met.
The software works first by understanding a number of very important variables, which it does on a continuous basis:
- What device activity is the user currently engaged in?
- What is the quality of the current mobile network experience?
- What other networks are available in the vicinity?
- What quality of experience do those networks offer?
It then assesses available networks in the context of the user’s behavior. For example, if the user is making a VoIP call the requirements may be latency of 60ms or less, packet loss percentage of less than 0.1, and jitter of less than 100ms.
For data streaming the requirements might be latency below 100ms and downlink speed of at least 5Mbps. For web browsing the combination of requirements might be sub-75ms latency, downlink of at least 3Mbps and uplink of at least 1Mbps.
Only when an available network connection offers an experience which is better than that provided by the current mobile network does the software move the device from one to the other. And, of course, the monitoring of experience and available options continues uninterrupted, so the device can always be moved automatically to the best available connection.
This newly patented software ensures the customer gets the best experience, which means improved satisfaction and increased loyalty for the service provider.
At Pareteum the understanding of the power of experience is in our IP, as well as our DNA.
