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, entertainment and other applications. A key metric that measures the effectiveness of broadband service in supporting these applications is Quality of Experience (QoE). ITU defines QoE as the “overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by the end user…” A good example of QoE metric is MOS (Mean Opinion Score) which measures user experience for VoIP.

Hughes Network Systems commissioned Tolly to benchmark the application QoE of commonly used applications across the Hughes broadband hybrid solution (HughesNet Fusion) and a terrestrial broadband solution. HughesNet Fusion is a hybrid, high-performance, highly resilient solution that supports both high-bandwidth applications and applications that require low latency by combining satellite and wireless technology into a seamless end-user solution.

Applications tested included web browsing, videoconferencing, HD video streaming, gaming and VoIP. Results were judged quantitatively (web browsing) and subjectively (video and gaming), using a 0-5 scale, where 0 is poor and 5 is excellent. Both systems were configured for 100/20Mbps bandwidths. .

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