As it has been since the first telephone call back in 1876, a fundamental challenge of voice engineers is to make sure the sound coming out of the receiver matches the, in terms of quality and timing, the sound going in at the other end. The more precise the match, the better the experience.
The mean opinion score (MOS) is a commonly used metric for quantifying the qualitative experience of a phone call. Using a 1-5 scale, with 5 being excellent and 1 being bad, people rate the experience of their phone calls — adding a dimension to performance monitoring that knowing the number of packets dropped or the amount of jitter on a call just doesn’t really capture. MOS helps round out the view, providing a holistic way of quickly understanding overall call quality.
MOS has its detractors, but it’s not to be discounted. Its strength is in measuring the same thing over time, and the number can give you a clear idea of where you might need to improve your network or whether you need to find a better provider. For example, if the MOS for a call placed between France and Moscow is 4.4 one day and then 3.6 a week later, and since what you’re seeing is the difference between truly exceptional and problematically bad, you can assume something is up and needs investigating.
Ultimately, MOS is one of several tools at the disposal of modern voice and network engineers in assessing the quality of the communications they are providing to their end users. MOS and other quality metrics help you make sure your network and your provider’s network (not to mention the method of interconnectivity between them) are working in harmony to provide the best possible environment for your business to flourish.
Read the full post to learn about what causes a low MOS and how to improve your MOS, as well as how Voxbone measures voice quality.
