Quality Analysis of Streaming Audio over Mobile Networks

This paper utilizes open source software to analyze the quality of audio streamed over mobile cellular networks. Industry conventions have been developed to assess audio quality such as the Mean Opinion Score or MOS scale described in the International Telecommunications Union ITU P.800.1 document.  The MOS scale is a subjective assessment based on the listener’s experience. To eliminate the use of a trained audio listener we automate an estimated MOS calculation by measuring the packet loss, average latency and jitter over the network transport path. The network under test is a pilot network to replace the dedicated analog circuit from the broadcast center to a radio transmitter. We intend to automate the logging of an objective quality assessment using MOS, cellular router and decoder measurements with confirmation using automatically generated visual representations of sample audio received. These visual representations will aid in manual confirmation of poor MOS scores with audio samples available for more in-depth review.