Standardisation to help consumers choose call quality
The Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), the standardisation unit of the department of telecom, is working on voice quality standards for international long distance (ILD) calls. Once the norms are in place, a consumer will be able to choose between a toll-quality and a below-toll-quality overseas call.
The new standards are expected to be in place within the next few months.
At present, there are no standards in place to check the quality of ILD services. Industry observers said some operators were offering below-toll-quality calls using the voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platform, but charging rates applicable for toll-quality calls.
While allowing operators to use VoIP technology for providing both toll-quality and below-toll-quality services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had prescribed the norms for toll-quality services. Consumers were supposed to be informed about the norms.
In November 2002, Trai had mandated TEC to set up a testing facility that would measure ILD calls on the basis of jitters, delay in voice transmission, loss in voice and other technical parameters.
The two-stage test developed by TEC will measure the quality of ILD services on the basis of a mean optimum score (MOS). A minimum MOS of 4 is required for toll-quality calls. For below toll quality calls, the minimum MOS is 3.
The new system will test ILD calls at two stages
