Communications Alliance will revise the telecommunications industry’s Quality of Service (QoS) guidelines for internet protocol (IP)-based services, to help ensure that consumers can enjoy a high quality experience when using the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Communications Alliance CEO, John Stanton, said the advent of the NBN made it timely to revise two key Communications Alliance guidelines, introduced in 2007, that service providers use to minimise quality-degrading factors such as delay, jitter and packet loss on IP- based services.
“Most IP services used by Australian consumers until now have run on copper-based networks. The existing guidelines have worked well to help deliver the best available service quality over copper, but the shift to fibre-based services via the NBN will change the classes of traffic being carried and a number of parameters within the access network,” Mr Stanton said.
“Therefore we need to ensure that the industry guidelines fully reflect the game-changing aspects of the shift to fibre and continue to foster the best possible end-to-end service quality for everyone using services carried over the NBN.”
The Communications Alliance Network Reference Panel took the decision to revise the two guidelines (G632 and G633), which cover quality of service parameters and testing arrangements for IP-based services.
Communications Alliance will work closely with NBN Co and other relevant stakeholders in revising the guidelines and will also take account of changes to relevant International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recommendations.
Mr Stanton said the working committee undertaking the revision aimed to complete its tasks by mid-2012.
He said the QoS guideline revision was one of several activities underway through Communications Alliance on behalf of the industry to enhance the consumer experience when using the NBN.
“Comms Alliance is also developing an Operations Code in cooperation with NBN Co to ensure appropriate intra-industry coordination, so that processes such as customer transfer between services providers is smooth, user-friendly and pro-competitive,” Mr Stanton said.
ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS ALLIANCE
Communications Alliance is the primary telecommunications industry body in Australia. Its membership is drawn from a wide cross-section of the communications industry, including carriers, carriage and internet service providers, content providers, search engines, equipment vendors, IT companies, consultants and business groups.
Its vision is to provide a unified voice for the telecommunications industry and to lead it into the next generation of converging networks, technologies and services. The prime mission of Communications Alliance is to promote the growth of the Australian communications industry and the protection of consumer interests by fostering the highest standards of business ethics and behaviour through industry self-governance.
For more details about Communications Alliance, see www.commsalliance.com.au.