TP108 - General Legal Act on the quality of universal service

The present document contains definitions and measurement methods for a range of user perceivable Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. The purpose of these parameters is to define objective and comparable measures of the QoS delivered to users/customers for use by users/customers. The present document applies to any telecommunication service, however, some parameters may have a limited application. The present document is intended to provide a menu from which individual items can be selected. There is no obligation to use any or all of the parameters. The QoS parameters are related primarily to services and service features and not to the technology used to provide the services. Therefore the parameters should be capable of use when the services are provided on new technologies such as IP and ATM or other packet switched technologies as well as on circuit switched technologies. The establishment of target values for QoS is beyond the scope of the present document. The QoS parameters listed in the present document are also not intended to assess the complete QoS of a telecommunication service. The present document provides a set of QoS parameters that covers specific user related QoS aspects rather than a complete list of QoS parameters. This set has been chosen to address areas where monitoring of QoS is likely to be most worthwhile, i.e. the areas that are most likely to be affected by any QoS problems. If stakeholders wish to examine other QoS aspects they are recommended to follow the general approach of the present document - as far as practicable - as a basis for the development of definitions and measurement methods for new specific QoS parameters. The set of QoS parameters is designed to be understood by the users of various telecommunications services. Sub-sets of these parameters can be selected for use in different circumstances. For example a specific parameter might be relevant for many users in some countries or markets but the same parameter might not be of relevance in others. Therefore stakeholders - users, customers, regulators, service providers, network operators and other parties interested in the use of QoS parameters - should decide in co-operation, which parameters and which measures should be used in their particular situation. This decision should take account of:
- The precise purpose for which they will be used.
- The general level of quality achieved by most operators.
- The degree to which the parameters will provide a reliable comparison of performance.
- The cost of measuring and reporting each parameter.