System and method for determining deterioration in call quality between one or more wireless end-users based on codec characteristics

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016352801-A1
Application number	US-201514721083-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 26, 2015
Priority date	May 26, 2015
Publication date	Dec 1, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present disclosure discloses a system and method for determining deterioration in call quality between one or more wireless end-users based on codec characteristics. Specifically, a network device determines a codec associated with a call between two client devices. Then, the network device determines a transmission rate based on the codec. Moreover, the network device estimates a number of packets to be received by an access point that a first client device is associated with based on the transmission rate, and compares the estimated number of packets to an actual number of packets received by the access point. If a difference between the estimated number and the actual number of packets exceeds a threshold, the network device diagnoses that a poor call quality associated with the call is due to either the first client device or network connectivity between the first client device and the access point.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors, causes performance of operations comprising:
determining a codec associated with a call between a first client device and a second client device; determining a transmission rate based on the codec associated with the call; estimating a number of packets to be received by an access point that the first client device is associated with based on the determined transmission rate; comparing the estimated number of packets to be received by the access point to an actual number of packets received by the access point; and in response to a difference between the estimated number and the actual number of packets exceeding a threshold value, diagnosing that a poor call quality associated with the call is due to either the first client device or network connectivity between the first client device and the access point.

2 . The medium of claim 1 , wherein the second client device is one of a wireless client device or a wired client device.

3 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) packet from the first client device; inspecting a payload type field of the RTP packet to determine the codec associated with the call.

4 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising:
diagnosing a poor end-to-end call quality associated with the call; and in response to the difference between the estimated number and the actual number of packets not exceeding the threshold value, diagnosing that the poor end-to-end call quality is due to issues associated with the second client device or network issues in network segments other than a network segment between the first client device and the access point.

5 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising monitoring one or more of the following parameters:
a client health metric based on a ratio between an average actual transmission rate and a maximum transmission rate between the first client device and the access point over a period of time; a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) corresponding to signals received by the access point receives from the first client device; a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) corresponding to the signals received by the access point from the first client device; an amount of time during the call when a value of the SNR is below a particular threshold; a number of RX retry frames received by the access point from the first client device; and a RX rate that the first client device indicates in packets transmitted to the access point.

6 . The medium of claim 5 , further comprising diagnosing that the poor call quality associated with the call is due to the network connectivity between the first client device and the access point in response to one of more of the followings being true:
a value of the client health metric indicates a low ratio between an average actual transmission rate and a maximum transmission rate between the first client device and the access point over a period of time; a value of the RSSI corresponding to signals received by the access point receives from the first client device is lower than a first threshold level; a value of the SNR corresponding to the signals received by the access point from the first client device is lower than a second threshold level; the amount of time during the call when the value of the SNR is below a particular threshold is higher than a third threshold level; the number of RX retry frames received by the access point from the first client device is higher than a fourth threshold level; and the RX rate that the first client device indicates in packets transmitted to the access point is lower than a fifth threshold level.

7 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising monitoring one of more of the following parameters:
a central processing unit (CPU) insufficient time during which a CPU is unavailable for an application running on the first client device corresponding to the call; a microphone not functioning time during which a microphone associated with the first client device is not functioning properly; and a clipping time during which the first client device receives incomplete voice signals.

8 . The medium of claim 7 , further comprising diagnosing that the poor call quality associated with the call is due to issues associated with the first client device in response to one of more of the followings being true:
the central processing unit (CPU) insufficient time during which the CPU is unavailable for an application running on the first client device corresponding to the call is higher than a first threshold level; the microphone not functioning time during which the microphone associated with the first client device is not functioning properly is higher than a second threshold level; and the clipping time during which the first client device receives incomplete voice signals is higher than a third threshold level.

9 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising:
evaluating a first collective contribution level to the poor call quality associated with the call based on one or more of a client health metric value, a RSSI value, a SNR value, a low SNR time, a RX retry value, and a RX rate; evaluating a second collective contribution level to the poor call quality associated with the call based on one or more of a CPU insufficient time, a microphone not functioning time, and a clipping time corresponding to the first client device; diagnosing that the poor call quality associated with the call is due to issues associated with the first client device in response to the second collective contribution level being higher than the first collective contribution level; and diagnosing that the poor call quality associated with the call is due to the network connectivity between the first client device and the access point in response to the first collective contribution level being higher than the second collective contribution level.

10 . The medium of claim 1 , further comprising:
estimating a number of packets destined to the first client device and to be transmitted by the access point to the first client device based on the determined transmission rate; comparing the estimated number of packets to be transmitted by the access point to the first client device to an actual number of packets transmitted by the access point to the first client device; and in response to a difference between the estimated number and the actual number of packets transmitted by the access point to the first client device exceeding the threshold value, diagnosing that a poor call quality associated with the call is due to either the first client device or network connectivity between the first client device and the access point.

11 . A system comprising:
at least one device including a hardware processor; the system being configured to perform operations comprising: determining a codec associated with a call between a first client device and a second client device; determining a transmission rate based on the codec associated with the call; estimating a number of packets to be received by an access point that the first client device is associated with based on the determined transmission rate; comparing the estimated number of packets to be received by the access point to an actual number of packets received by the access point; and in response to a difference between the estimated number and the actual number of packets exceeding a threshold value, diagnosing that a poor call quality associated with the call is due to either the first client device or network

Assignees

• Aruba Networks Inc

Inventors

• KRISHNA Navaneetha
• Yadav Brijesh
• Joshi Venkatesh
• Agarwal Gopal

Classifications

• H04L43/08

  Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters · CPC title

• H04L69/22

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L65/608

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L65/80 Primary

  Responding to QoS · CPC title

• H04L43/0894

  Packet rate · CPC title