Abstract

The importance of broadband Internet to families and households is well known, as it provides the connectivity required for remote learning, work-from-anywhere, video collaboration, telehealth, entertainment and other applications. A key metric that measures the effectiveness of broadband service in supporting these applications is Quality of Experience (QoE). The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) defines QoE as the “overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by the end user.” One example of a QoE metric is Mean Opinion Score (MOS) which measures user experience for Voice over IP (VoIP).

Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), commissioned Tolly to benchmark the QoE of commonly used applications across their hybrid satellite and wireless broadband solution compared to a terrestrial broadband service. The Hughes hybrid solution is a multi- transport, high-performance, resilient service that supports high-bandwidth applications and latency-sensitive applications by combining satellite and wireless technology into a seamless end-user experience.

Applications tested included web browsing, videoconferencing, HD video streaming, gaming and VoIP. Results were judged both quantitatively (e.g., web browsing) and subjectively (e.g., video and gaming), using a 0-5 scale, where 0 is poor and 5 is excellent. Both the hybrid and the terrestrial services tested were configured for 100/20Mbps speeds.

Tests showed that the Hughes hybrid broadband solution provided a high quality user experience across all the different application types tested, delivering the highest score (excellent) across all applications.