Telchemy Announces VQmon/SA
VQmon/SA offers critical enhancements for "on the wire" VoIP management devices, complementing VQmon/EP and enabling consistent measurements from anywhere on the network
ATLANTA (October 12, 2001) - Telchemy, Inc. announced today the availability of VQmon/SA, the newest member of its VQmon family of high performance, non-intrusive monitoring agents. VQmon/SA fills the void that afflicts "on the wire" devices in Voice over IP (VoIP) networks. Being deployed "on the wire", management devices such as network analyzers, firewall routers, monitors, probes and testers do not have insight into what is occuring in VoIP end points such as media gateways and IP phones. Hence, their statistics are very often incomplete and misleading. VQmon/SA addresses this shortcoming by implementing, among other features, a state-of-the-art jitter buffer emulator, creating a similar enviroment in on-the-wire devices as exits in the VoIP end points.
The jitter buffer emulator models the way fixed and adaptive jitter buffers behave. The emulator enables VQmon/SA to accurately predict the amount of packet loss occurring in the end point as if it were in the endpoint. It also combines the amount of loss occuring in the network to the loss in the endpoint to provide an accurate accounting of total packet loss, burst packet loss and its effect on VoIP call quality. VQmon/SA also also provides access to discrete performance numbers for detailed analysis.
VQmon is a family lightweight, computationally efficient, real-time,embedded voice quality monitors that can measure and monitor "all" calls made over VoIP networks. VQmon/EP, the first member of the family, integrates easily into DSPs, VoIP gateways, communications servers, and IP phones. Logically located between the jitter buffer and CODEC, VQmon/EP provides a more accurate assessment of call-quality for more calls than alternative methods and is the first technology to model time varying impairments and their effects on end-user perception.
"Service providers remain concerned that VoIP call-quality is less predictable than that delivered by their existing network," said Dr. Alan Clark, president and founder of Telchemy. "The ability to monitor network and end user perceived quality of calls from any point in the network, in end-points or on the wire, using accurate and consistent methdologies, will allow service providers to better provision, manage and troubleshoot their services in real time. VQmon/SA will also help remove service provider "finger-pointing" when integrated into firewall routers, SLA monitors and similar devices deployed between VoIP domains."
VQmon technology extends the ITU E Model standard with sophisticated, high performance technology that models the impact of packet-loss-bursts, other time-varying-impairments, and the "recency" effect to produce much more accurate and simplified assessments of VoIP call quality. Network impairments, such as packet loss, delay and jitter, are not constant in time, resulting in variable call quality being experienced by the end-user. VQmon technology is able to model both the way that the user experiences quality in real time and their opinion of call quality at any point during the call.
VQmon/SA is orderable immediately. Pricing is composed of source license, nominal run-time royalties, and maintenance fees. Interested parties should contact Telchemy for details.