Area 3

Quality of Service, ICT Systems Engineering

The general objective of this Area is to collect and develop knowledge for studying and evaluating the quality of ICT services. The quality is intended as an indicator measuring how close the service performance are to the ideal operations and it is evaluated by analyzing all the factors contributing to service degradation.

The assessment is necessarily based on recognized and accepted standards, as seen from the user side and with a global meaning (Quality of Experience – QoE), summing up the several elements critical to success of a service.

In this context, the service degradation factors, which are analyzed with the methods typical of the ICT systems engineering, are included and are of particular significance in the area. The creation of a pool of expertise on this topic, is the joint objective.

In particular, in the research activity, the ICT Systems engineering is expressed in the following topics:

–               Service Engineering and Platform architectures for interpersonal communications and broadcasting of audiovisual media;
related to both communication services, such as VoIP, and new platforms for linear and on-demand broadcasting services.

–               Traffic Engineering and fixed network architectures;
mainly related to technologies offering the more suitable transport for a particular traffic type (generated by a particular platform).

–               Media Engineering
related to the quality of media components (Elementary Streams) of a service (primarily audio and video). Particularly with regard both to the quality of transport on the perceived quality and for the knowledge expansion and evaluation of lossy source coding/decoding techniques.
Activity will address also higher-level indicators, such as “Qualitel” (a future evolution of the Auditel system) parameters for television or similar indicators for different media or networks.

On the ICT Systems Engineering matters, research objectives will be pursued in cooperation with FUB areas whose competences include these issues and with University departments. The purpose of this activity is the cultural enrichment of the Area personnel and the satisfaction of the needs of specific projects. Relevant importance will be devoted to the definition of new standards and to the implementation of recognized standards, primarily to promote their use in the PA. In this context is to evaluate the implementation of national reference centers, or cooperation in European networks. Finally, it is to underline the real measure activity which will found a better developing field in the projects proposed by the Area.