Traditional assessments of home-internet connection quality depend on metrics that don’t accurately capture customer experience. They may reliably determine whether a network is fast or slow, but they rarely consider the specific devices found in someone’s home, or what those devices need to work as intended. They also usually ignore factors that exist beyond the router, like WiFi coverage quality, device location, interference, and congestion. The end result is that consumers are often left dissatisfied, and looking for alternative communication service providers.
With this in mind, Plume has developed a new approach to measuring connection and service quality called “Quality of Experience,” or QoE. Like conventional quality of service measures, QoE considers network throughput, but it also looks at factors like device type, the applications a device runs, and each device’s level of activity. The purpose of the QoE is to determine what a device requires for optimal performance and then compare that to what it’s actually getting. CSPs can then use this information to automatically make adjustments to their service—and optimize connectivity in real-time.