At Neuron, Quality of Experience (QoE) is our North Star. We use this metric to help our customers optimize their connectivity investments today, while preparing for a future where they no longer have to worry about the connectivity itself – but instead, can focus on the new digital experiences and business transformation opportunities that fast, reliable connectivity enables.
In this post, we’ll share more about what QoE is, Neuron’s QoE scoring system, and how we help customers understand and optimize their onboard QoE for passengers and crew.
What is QoE?
QoE is a measure used to assess the quality of someone’s experience using digital services like apps, websites, videos, games and more, based on factors such as usability, performance and reliability. For example, can I stream videos without buffering? Can I quickly upload and share content?
In the world of connectivity, QoE is arguably the most important metric, because connectivity is only as good as the digital experiences it enables. But, it’s often overlooked because QoE is difficult to measure accurately and at scale – especially on moving things, like ships and planes. In many instances, travelers and crew have become resigned to poor internet services, and they often just give up, or don’t even try because they assume the Wi-Fi isn’t worth the price tag.
When companies focus on QoE as a key performance indicator, they are able to improve their operations, accelerate performance and elevate onboard experiences. In fact, our customers have seen a direct correlation with an increase in their QoE and Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
How does Neuron help companies measure their QoE?
The essence of Neuron’s platform is our QoE score. We developed a unique scoring system to measure and monitor real-time connectivity performance on a vessel or aircraft as it moves, or at a remote site as conditions change, and the corresponding effect on end-user experience.
Neuron’s QoE score is based on a scale of 0-100, where 100 qualifies as fiber-like speeds, and it’s tailored to different types of applications, such as browsing, collaboration and streaming. For example, Neuron generates Streaming QoE scores for 360p, 720p and 1080p resolutions to provide customers with insight into the streaming performance capabilities on their networks across any streaming platform, like YouTube, Netflix, Disney+ and more.
QoE scores are determined using AI and machine learning, which correlates real-time data on connectivity performance – across multiple providers, orbits and networks – with usage metrics, vessel or tail, location or flight region, route, elevation and weather information to provide an independent, holistic view of the internet performance and QoE onboard or onsite. All of the connectivity performance and QoE data that is captured by Neuron is created and owned by each customer to provide them with an independent view of their unique QoE.
The data we use to calculate QoE scores is time, location and contextually aware, which allows customers to get a precise analysis of the factors impacting a vessel, aircraft or remote site’s QoE score. For example, Neuron factors in weather events, network outages, surges in data use, as well as details such as the exact position of a vessel at sea or in port, or the elevation of an aircraft.
How does Neuron help companies optimize their QoE?
The data streams retrieved by our QoE measuring, monitoring and analytics solutions, Neuron Pulse and Neuron 360, are used to build the machine learning models that drive Neuron Grid, our AI-powered network management solution. The models use an algorithm to extract meaningful patterns from the customer’s connectivity performance data and QoE to predict future outcomes and make informed decisions to dynamically manage the network, factoring in details such as cost constraints, traffic demand by application type, estimated available bandwidth, and more.
Grid’s intelligent decision engine makes decisions every 50 milliseconds to orchestrate onboard traffic over the right service – LEO, MEO, GEO, 5G, LTE, microwave, fiber and Wi-Fi – at the right time, to make the best use of all bandwidth available and deliver the best QoE.
Unlike rule-based SD-WAN solutions, Grid does not require customer’s to draft manual traffic policies or interventions. It continually learns from the data it ingests, dynamically adapts its decision-making and behavior, and its machine learning model is continually refined.
Interested in learning more? Connect with our team to set up a demo: https://www.getneuron.com/contact-us. And click here to read about how Neuron measures Streaming QoE.
