Fixing VoIP-over-3G quality issues with 3G-324M

In a recent company announcement Clearsight introduced their latest version of network analysis solution that helps wireless operators test VoIP-over-3G readiness. The solution contains test algorithms based around 3GPP protocol for video telephony – 3G-324M. It is interesting to note that early version of VoIP on wireline networks also leveraged a video telephony protocol, H.323.

Clearsight believes that the 3G-324M standard will gain traction popularity among operators looking to add VoIP to their 3G networks. There is already some traction among operators in Japan and Europe.

There are usual quality related issues for handling VoIP over 3G: echo and broken speech. VoIP can particularly be problematic in traditional wireless networks – particularly 2G and 2.5G ones. 3G-324M is designed to support conventional two way video telephony in mobile handsets over traditional circuited-based networks but provides for guaranteed fixed-delays. Thus 3G-324M should in theory have acceptable levels of voice quality.

While latencies of 80 ms or lower are acceptable, perhaps what is even more important is jitter which is simply a measure of latency variance. 3G-324M has guaranteed fixed-delays – minimizing latency but eliminating jitter.

Clearsight develops solutions for wireline networks; specifically Ethernet. The company provides support for 3G-324M so that when those packets enter an Ethernet based (backhaul) network (from the cellular base station back to the central office), Clearsight solution will be able to perform fundamental protocol analysis on these voice packets.