Mobile Video Quality of Experience, Part I

Device manufacturers and carriers are touting the quality and speed of their offerings. You’ve probably noticed that they’re always advertising how fast movies and videos can be downloaded, the quality of video streaming, and the sharpness of video quality.  Meanwhile, television networks and other content providers are promoting the convenience of video on demand. Together, this provides an expectation among consumers that not only will they be able to view everything from football games to their favorite shows wherever and whenever they want, but that the experience will be similar to watching the same content in real time.

In my next few blogs, I’m going to talk about the surge in growth of video-enabled mobile devices, what consumers now expect in terms of mobile video quality, and how quality of experience can be measured, tracked and monetized by operators.

Robust sales of iPhones, iPads and Android-enabled devices shows that consumers are willing to pay a premium for mobile devices that provide access to high quality video, on demand.  In fact, IDC reported that media tablet shipments rose by 88.9% on a sequential basis during the second quarter of 2011, and forecasts that 62.5 million tablet units will be shipped by the end of 2012.  That’s a lot!!

But what are the implications of this exactly?  For starters, since consumers are paying more money for premium service, they’re going to want exceptional quality. This is different than when mobile phones were first introduced.  Back then, consumers were willing to accept dropped calls or poor quality transmission in exchange for the convenience of mobility. But nowadays, quality does matter, and with the choices available and the fast-paced, well-publicized advances in technology, many consumers just won’t settle for anything less than top quality.  With this comes added focus on whether the consumers are getting all the features they were promised and paid extra for, especially with respect to video.  That puts a lot of pressure on operators.

Next week I’ll talk about how video quality can be measured to make sure it meets the expectations of all these end users.