ABSTRACT
Many years of research have been dedicated toward the definition of sophisticated quality of service (QoS) measurement tools and methods. Nonetheless, the results given to end users by most commonly used online speed measurement tools are still far from being accurate. Among other factors, the reliability of the measurement methods is affected by different static and dynamic constraints of involved network nodes and TCP/IP implementations. The clarification of such uncertainties will help establish the baseline for the definition of any comparable and technically feasible measurement methodology, in terms of measurement periods, number of concurrent connections, and convergence time. This article presents a comprehensive description of the research work and proposes mechanisms, aiming to obtain a full understanding of cross-layer effects during a speed test targeting end users.

ABSTRACT
The current financial situation, together with the new market conditions, has led to major changes in the ICT sector over the last few years. Many services that in the past were only offered by operators are now held by third parties through the cloud, which has caused a shift towards new business models at the expense of a more traditional market. Furthermore, these economic changes have conducted to socio-cultural transformations with great impact on the user’s behaviors. In this paper a cloud platform for the measurement and evaluation of the Quality of Experience (QoE) is presented. The platform is based in a model (QoXphere) that ensures the user satisfaction in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and the provider economic benefits, as demanded in current market situation. In addition, the proposed cloud architecture intends to help in the advance of the work item recently opened in ITU-T to establish an ITU recognition procedure of testing laboratories with competence in ITU-T Recommendations by providing a unified cloud environment in which to validate them.

ABSTRACT
The telecommunications sector has experienced significant changes over the past few years. The advent and rise of new applications and services, together with a competitive market, has led to a complex scenario in which quality of service plays a major role. Under this condition, novel QoS regulation and standardization initiatives are required. During the last few years new terms and concepts, such as quality of experience or QoS perceived, have been included in the updated and new QoS-related standards as to better integrate the user's point of view, as opposed to only network performance parameters. The influence of the user's satisfaction on the quality of business has also been given increased attention in the regulation and standardization bodies recently. The result is a loose collection of metrics and models that are not standardized and do not integrate all aspects of quality. Such integration is necessary to assure the successful development of this sector. This paper presents a new and integrated QoS model (QoXphere) that is spherical, adaptive, and multi-layered.

ABSTRACT
Quality of service has become one of the most important factors among Internet service providers. The implementation of appropriate QoS policies is essential in order to maintain customer loyalty and fulfill regulators' requirements. ITU-T recommendation E.802 provides a framework for the identification of QoS criteria relevant to users and ISPs. This Recommendation also provides guidelines to derive measurable QoS parameters from identified criteria. This article presents a QoS management model and implementation methodology for ISPs. We ground our investigation on the E.802 framework, which ISPs may face when implementing ITU-T Recommendation G.1000. The proposed methodology is meaningful for users, vendors, and network operators. Furthermore, its conformance with the ITU-T standard makes it suitable and deployment-ready for both regulators and providers.

ABSTRACT
The advent and rise of broadband technologies and new applications and services have led to a complex heterogeneous scenario in which providing Quality of Service (QoS) has become a compelling issue. Furthermore, the competitive condition of the telecommunications environment has caused user’s perception of quality to become one of the most differential factors for service providers. Due to this fact, QoS must not only attend to specific technical metrics, but more important, QoS criteria should be defined to assure the level of quality to fulfil the users’ requirements. In this new context, the definition of effective user-oriented QoS management models and frameworks has become a matter of contention. This chapter aims to provide readers a comprehensive analysis of the entire significance of a user-centered approach for quality of service management. For this purpose, a review of the most important issues related to the subject is provided.

ABSTRACT
The proper execution of performance tests is of utmost importance for the analysis and evaluation of Internet-related technologies, protocols and deployment strategies. Nowadays, there are plenty of tools available to experimenters ranging from simulation tools, emulation equipment, to small and large scale experimentation testbeds. Each of these performance evaluation frameworks introduces a series of capabilities and drawbacks. Additionally, there is a need for using a common methodology to perform different performance tests and to create comparable outcomes. Seeking for the standardization of reliable and comparable Internet speed measurements and trying to provide end-users with trustworthy measurement tools, different SDOs have standardized both TCP-based and IP-based measurement methodologies. This paper focuses on the applicability of the different measurement frameworks and methodologies in the field of mobile Internet, with special focus on the impact of using TCP over mobile broadband connections. The paper describes a series of experiments over different frameworks and, based on the obtained results, identifies the implications of the different types of performance tests into the evaluation outcomes and states the need for large scale measurements.

ABSTRACT
After several years of research towards sophisticated QoS measurement tools and methods, the results given to end-users by most commonly used on-line speed measurement tools are still far from being precise. In order to define a reliable Internet speed measurement methodology for end- users, the impact that the static and dynamic constraints of network nodes and TCP/IP implementations could impose must be first carefully analyzed. Such constraints will deter- mine the measurement methodology to be defined in terms of measurement periods, number of concurrent connections and convergence time by deployment of controlled simula- tion/emulation environments and real world comparisons. This paper presents a detailed description of the works and leaves hints to be followed, aiming to get a full understanding of cross-layer effects during a speed test targeting end-user.

ABSTRACT
The evolution of Internet access technologies, together with the wide diversity of customer devices, has led to a complex scenario where measuring basic metrics with accuracy has become a rather complicated task. Although nowadays there are a lot of tools to assess the rate of Internet speed, most of them share neither the methodology nor the infrastructure to produce comparable results.

In this regard, the development of a unified approach to measure the Internet speed would be beneficial for all ICT players. The establishment of such proposal would inspire better confidence in consumers through the provision of precise comparisons, and it would also be very useful to operators, regulators and providers. Towards this aim, the ITU-T has been working on the definition of a unified methodology and measurement framework to assess the rate of Internet speed.

This paper presents a detailed description of the work that is being done at present in the definition of the aforementioned framework.

ABSTRACT
Este artículo trata sobre los esquemas de distribución de contenido multimedia a través de Internet, con especial interés en Internet móvil. Tanto la variabilidad de la calidad de los accesos radio como el incremento del tráfico multimedia plantean nuevos retos en relación a la gestión dinámica de los servicios sobre recursos de red compartidos. En primer lugar, el artículo ofrece una revisión del estado de la tecnología relacionada con el transporte multimedia extremo a extremo. A continuación, el artículo se centra en analizar la evolución de los mecanismos de adaptación dinámica, incluyendo desde esquemas extremo a extremo hasta la gestión dinámica de los recursos de red. Se analizan las posibles ventajas asociadas a nuevas arquitecturas como la computación en la nube móvil y las futuras redes 5G. Finalmente, el artículo identifica una serie de retos y desafíos en la gestión adaptativa de los servicios multimedia en el futuro.

ABSTRACT
The current financial situation, together with the new market conditions, has led to major changes in the ICT sector over the last few years. Many of the services that were once only offered by operators are now being provided by third parties through the cloud. This situation has promoted new business models against the traditional ones. Furthermore, these economic changes have conducted to socio-cultural transformations with great impact on the user's behaviors. In this paper a cloud platform for the measurement and evaluation of the Quality of Experience (QoE) is presented. The platform is based in a model (QoXphere) that ensures the user satisfaction in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and the provider economic benefits, as demanded in current market situation. In addition, the proposed cloud architecture intends to aid to advance in the work item opened recently in ITU-T to establish an ITU recognition procedure of testing laboratories with competence in ITU-T Recommendations.

ABSTRACT
The telecommunications sector has experienced significant changes over the past few years. The advent and rise of new applications and services, together with a competitive market, has led to a complex scenario in which quality of service (QoS) plays a major role. Under this condition, novel QoS regulation and standardization initiatives are required. During the last few years new terms and concepts, such as Quality of Experience (QoE) or QoS Perceived (QoP), have been included in the updated and new QoS-related standards as to better integrate the user’s point of view, as opposed to only network performance parameters. The influence of the user’s satisfaction on the Quality of Business (QoBiz) has also been given increased attention in the regulation and standardization bodies recently. The result is a loose collection of metrics and models that are not standardized and do not integrate all aspects of quality. Such integration is necessary to assure the successful development of this sector. This paper presents a new and integrated QoS model (QoXphere) that is spherical, adaptive and multi-layered.

ABSTRACT
Global interoperability testing, as defined in ITU T Q.3909, leads to complex experiments involving many actors and variables to be controlled. The definition and deployment of these experimental scenarios together with the development of the testing methodology is a major challenge that is essential for studying the impact of new technologies and networks on future society. This contribution proposes a collaborative testing platform (LabQoS) that provides the capability to define and share experimental scenarios and to test results. The platform has been designed to determine, develop and reproduce extensive QoS experimental scenarios and to make them available to researchers or members of standardization organizations in a collaborative environment.

ABSTRACT
This paper proposes the deployment of a network software platform for experimentation called LabQoS that will allow the scientific community to establish scientific experiments relating to measure the performance of applications and services on the Internet and other network environments. Previous experiences have already deployed measurement systems, but they don’t incorporate the concept of control of the scenario to enable the performing of experiments. This LabQoS capacity makes it an innovative platform unique in its approach. A module called Test Environment Builder has been designed in order to monitor the operating parameters, and to propose adaptation strategies to handle the scenario control variables. We define an experimental data model that identifies the entities to be considered in the management of the platform. Assessment mechanisms are proposed to study the dynamic sensitivity of the control variables with respect to the parameters. LabQoS is based on QoSMETER architecture that addresses technological aspects such as user management, deployment tools, data collection, reporting, security, etc.

ABSTRACT
The evolution of current networks to Next Generation Networks (NGNs) constitutes arguably the most significant transformation in the Telecommunication sector in recent decades. Quality of Service (QoS) is one of the key aspects in this evolution. In the NGN environment, networks are designed to be multiservice, supporting a wide range of premium services. Each of these services may have different QoS requirements which should be established based on the overall end user's perception. In this emerging context, novel QoS policies are required to adapt the traditional QoS regulatory model to the new scenario. This paper presents an approach to identify key factors that contributes to the development of future Internet quality of service regulation. A case study on the application of our user-centric QoS model to the Internet QoS regulation in Spain is described. The results of the study demonstrate the need for adapting current regulatory frameworks in order to ensure competition, pluralism and diversity in the new network environment.

ABSTRACT
Quality of service has become one of the most important factors among Internet service providers. The implementation of appropriate QoS policies is essential in order to maintain customer loyalty and fulfill regulators' requirements. ITU-T recommendation E.802 provides a framework for the identification of QoS criteria relevant to users and ISPs. This Recommendation also provides guidelines to derive measurable QoS parameters from identified criteria. This article presents a QoS management model and implementation methodology for ISPs. We ground our investigation on the E.802 framework, which ISPs may face when implementing ITU-T Recommendation G.1000. The proposed methodology is meaningful for users, vendors, and network operators. Furthermore, its conformance with the ITU-T standard makes it suitable and deployment-ready for both regulators and providers.

ABSTRACT
User’s requirements have become a key factor for any Quality of Service (QoS) management model to succeed. The advent and rise of new broadband services and network architectures (Triple-Play-Services, NGN…) depends on the ability of providers to achieve user’s expectations in these scenarios. For that reason, the overall end user’s perception (Quality of Experience – QoE) must be audited, on a regular basis, to address changing user’s needs. This paper presents a general system developed to evaluate QoE on IP networks. The system architecture is designed to be capable of emulating multi agent networks and dynamically changing conditions. In addition, the results of a Web browsing QoE experiment, laid out within this emulation system, are described. The experiment was conducted on the basis of ITU-T Recommendation G.1030, and aimed to update the perceptual model, provided in this Recommendation, to today’s user requirements and technical improvements.

ABSTRACT
Deployment of quality-of-service (QoS) policies is becoming one of the biggest challenges for today's Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Nowadays, QoS does not only address specific technical standard metrics; it must be concern about other aspects such as user's final perception or regulations mandatory compliments instead. Although some efforts are being made on studying and analysing this new QoS scope, there are not still many advances on defining methodologies to deploy it on real network sceneries. UIT-T Rec. G-1000 makes an approachon this issue and provides a meaningful framework to users, service providers and regulators. Nevertheless, UIT-T G.1000 does not go an step further and remains at the 'theorical stage'. Our research group NQaS (Networking Quality and Security) is carrying out different initiatives focus on solving this new QoS dimension. This paper presents some of the on-going research areas of NQaS on the way to find an appropiate methodology to apply a global QoS policy in an ISP on the basis of the UIT-T G.1000 framework.

ABSTRACT
One of the most important tasks of a researcher consists in performing tests to validate the results of the research done. In a network related research work, with complex infrastructure and many configuration parameters, testing our work is usually rather mechanic, tedious and error prone if tests are done manually. In the Networking, Quality and Security Research Group, we have developed a generic test framework to automate this important task, composed of four kind of logical elements: a manager, agents, daemons and formatters. With these four elements, every phase of the process is automated, from test configuration to result formatting. The deployment of this framework has drastically reduced the time needed for the test phase and the number of errors due to mistakes. It has also allowed us to share resources among projects more easily and to schedule test sets when the devices are not being used.

ABSTRACT
This paper presents a comprehensive model intended to analyse quality of service in telecommunications services. Many works have been published in this area, both from a technical viewpoint as well as taking into consideration subjective concerns. However, these works have not resulted in a unique methodology to assess the experienced quality. While most of the studies consider the quality of service from biased perspectives, we try to analyse quality of service as a general gauge of final users’ satisfaction. The proposed model allows us to estimate the quality experienced by end users, while offering detailed analysis regarding the different agents involved in the service provision. Once we overview the most significant elements of the model, an in-depth analytical study is detailed. Finally, we illustrate a practical study for HTTP service in order to validate the theoretical model.

ABSTRACT
Esta ponencia describe una metodología para la evaluación de los servicios de telecomunicación desde la perspectiva de los usuarios. La metodología se basa en una clasificación de los servicios y sus componentes que es comprensible para los usuarios y en la identificación de los distintos factores de la calidad de servicio que afectan y determinan la calidad de servicio percibida por los usuarios. Basándose en estas clasificaciones, se estudian los componentes y relaciones de un sistema que permita evaluar la QoS de las ofertas de servicios de distintos proveedores. Dicha evaluación se basa en un modelo que establece la correspondencia entre la calidad percibida por el usuario y las funciones y responsabilidades de los agentes que intervienen en la prestación de un servicio. Por último, se presentan algunos de los resultados obtenidos a partir de la aplicación de la metodología y la línea de trabajos futuros.

ABSTRACT
This paper offers an approach to the definition of access speed measurements. An ever growing increase of Internet Service Providers (ISP) and different types of technologies in the Internet access, makes it difficult for users to decide which is the best or most suitable connection to satisfy their needs. From these considerations, the possibility of the Internet users to obtain a real and neutral measurement of the service of their Internet access may help them to decide if it is covering their demands or, on the contrary, the provider is not complying with the terms of the contract. In order to perform this measurement, an Internet speed test through web interface has been defined, as well as the way to obtain a measure which can comply with the objective of giving users a proper idea of how their Internet access is working. This project is included in the Quality of Service (QoS) investigation area in our investigation group.

ABSTRACT
This paper presents velocimetro.org, the service developed by the Engineering Faculty of Bilbao to provide access speed measurements in Internet. The explosion of Internet Service Providers (ISP) and different types of technologies in Internet access, makes it difficult for Internet users to decide about the best or more acquaint access to cope with their needs. Velocimetro.org offers the possibility to obtain a neutral measurement of the quality of service (QoS) of the access to Internet. In this way, users can evaluate and decide if their ISP is covering their demands or, on the contrary, is not complying with the terms of the contract. From this point of view of an ISP, velocimetro.org allows to make comparisons of their service against their competitors.

ABSTRACT
This paper presents velocimetro.org, the service developed by the Engineering Faculty of Bilbao to provide access speed measurements in Internet. The explosion of Internet Service Providers (ISP) and different types of technologies in Internet access, makes it difficult for Internet users to decide about the best or more acquaint access to cope with their needs. Velocimetro.org offers the possibility to obtain a neutral measurement of the quality of service (QoS) of the access to Internet. In this way, users can evaluate and decide if their ISP is covering their demands or, on the contrary, is not complying with the terms of the contract. From the point of view of an ISP, velocimetro.org allows to make comparisons of their service against their competitors.

ABSTRACT
During the 90's the exponential growth of the number of Internet users led to the birth of many ISPs and data operators. Nowadays, after the technological bubble, only some of them survive. Since prices have reached the lowest limit, some kind of service quality differentiation between competitors is a must. Unfortunately, QoS measuring methods don’t always agree with users' expectations. Moreover, many times data operators don't know how to improve the quality that users perceive. Any investment on infrastructures seems to result on an improvement, but there are no guarantees. This article describes the effort of a group of Spanish Universities towards the definition of a method to set up and measure the relationships between users' satisfaction and network parameters. The model developed would allow both ISPs and legislators to control the degree of users' satisfaction, as well as how any change in network parameters results on a variation of their perceptions.