Highlights:
- Airlines and cruise lines lack the data and insights they need to know when or why their passenger’s aren’t having a great experience with streaming services like YouTube, Netflix and more – they just see customer complaints and Wi-Fi refund requests after the fact.
- To help our customers better understand the quality of their passenger’s streaming experiences and make better decisions, we’re rolling out a tool called Neuron Streaming QoE. It uses AI and machine learning to determine how long it will take to watch a video, measured against how long it should take to watch that same video, and generates unique scores, in real-time, with minimal bandwidth, for 360p, 720p and 1080p resolutions.
- To enrich this data, Neuron provides detailed insight into factors impacting QoE, for example, upstream conditions, downstream conditions, weather events and more. It also provides insight into trends over time so that customers can create benchmarks, begin to predict QoE, and take proactive steps to improve passenger experiences.
You’ve probably been there. You’re on a long flight, or maybe a cruise ship after a full day of activities, eager to unwind with your favorite movies or TV shows – only to be met with lagging connections and that dreaded spinning wheel.
This scenario is frustrating, for passengers AND for the executives and IT teams who genuinely want to deliver a great customer experience. The problem is that they don’t have the data and insights they need to know when or why their passenger’s streaming quality is glitchy, significantly degraded, or just not working. All they see are customer complaints and Wi-Fi refund requests, and everyone’s left scrambling to figure out what’s going on.
To help our customers better understand the quality of their passenger’s streaming experiences and make better decisions, we’re rolling out a tool called Neuron Streaming QoE.
Quality of Experience (QoE) has been at the heart of the Neuron platform since day one. Our QoE scoring system makes it easy to measure and monitor a fleet’s performance and end-user experience, in real-time, as an aircraft or vessel moves. The QoE score, initially developed for web browsing, is based on a scale of 0-100, with 100 qualifying as fiber-like speeds. The score is determined using machine learning and AI, and an ultra low-bandwidth probe that pulls connectivity performance data, such as network and application performance, unidirectional latency and more, and correlates it with passenger utilization metrics to provide a reliable measure of QoE.
Neuron Streaming QoE brings in video performance metrics to determine how long it will take to watch a video, measured against how long it should take to watch that same video. Let’s break that down. Say you’re mid-flight and press play on a 60-second YouTube video. If the video starts instantly and plays with little-to-no load time or rebuffering, the quality of your viewing experience will be scored around 100. That’s a great streaming experience, like what you’d expect with fiber connectivity on the ground. If that same video takes 60-70 seconds to complete, the streaming QoE score will drop to a range of 80-100. If the 60-second video takes 105 seconds or longer to complete, that’s now considered a poor streaming experience, scored at 50 or less.
Because different streaming resolutions have different throughput and latency needs, Neuron generates unique QoE scores for 360p, 720p and 1080p resolutions to provide our customers with a comprehensive view of their view streaming capabilities.
With real-time streaming QoE data, airlines and cruise lines can elevate in-flight and onboard digital experiences, and improve overall customer satisfaction.
On the network side, QoE scores are an indicator of overall performance. If QoE scores drop, our customers can use Neuron to dig deeper into the factors impacting their performance – with insights such as upstream condition, downstream condition, weather events and more – and get to the root cause and resolution faster. They can also see trends over time, create benchmarks, and actually begin to predict QoE. For example, certain routes or regions may have network congestion, resulting in a consistently bad streaming experience. For that route, or others with similar metrics, they can work with their providers to scale up or down bandwidth as needed.
On the passenger side, QoE scores are an indicator of overall satisfaction. In fact, Neuron’s QoE scores have proven to directly correlate with our customer’s Net Promoter Scores (NPS). With streaming QoE data on hand, airlines and cruise lines can find creative ways to proactively engage with their passengers when connectivity issues arise. For example, if a passenger is watching Netflix and their video stream stalls, before they even have a chance to get frustrated, they might get a notification acknowledging the hiccup, along with an offer for a complimentary snack or drink as a gesture of goodwill. And that’s just scratching the surface. Having visibility into Streaming QoE will unlock a bunch of new opportunities to elevate passenger experiences.
To take QoE optimization to the next level, our customers can add Neuron Grid AI-powered network management solutions. Grid intakes all of the factors that impact QoE, including application requirements, network performance, location, time, available bandwidth, cost constraints and more, and makes real-time decisions to orchestrate connectivity for maximum QoE.
Neuron Streaming QoE is now available with Neuron Pulse, 360 and Grid. Send us a note if you’d be interested in learning more!
