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Executive Summary of the meeting of Study Group 12 (Geneva, 18-27 January 2011)

The fourth meeting of ITU-T Study Group 12 (Performance, QoS and QoE) in the 2009-2012 Study Period, convened by TSB Collective letter 5/12, took place in Geneva, from 18 to 27 January 2011. The number of participants (106) was as strong and diverse as ever, involving 33 countries, with several new countries and companies attending. 55 contributions and 185 TDs were received, of which 89 involved liaisons, reinforcing SG12’s lead ITU-T role regarding Performance, QoS and QoE. SG12 produced 30 outgoing Liaison Statements.

The meeting ran paperless as announced in the above-mentioned Collective letter.

New and revised study Questions

The revised Questions 11 and 13/12, as well as the new Question 18/12 agreed on at the last meeting were approved during the opening plenary. It was agreed to revise Question 9/12 to extend its scope to cover statistical analysis methods and procedures for evaluation of objective methods. The revised text was agreed and submitted for endorsement to TSAG. Approval is expected during the next SG12 meeting.

Future meetings

Rapporteur’s meetings

Seven Questions (Qs 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14 and 17/12) requested interim Rapporteur’s meetings, these requests were agreed.

Next meeting of SG12

The next meeting of SG12 will be held in Geneva from 31. October to 9 November 2011. Please note that this meeting was shifted by one week compared to the schedule published in TSB Circular 80, in order to avoid the meeting at the same time as ITU Telecom World 2011.

Results of the meeting of Working Party 1/12 – Terminals and multimedia subjective assessment

The foreseen evolution of activities is to consider bandwidth extension and binaural perception and this is reflected in the work plan of Q3, 4, 5 and 6.

The next meeting of FG CarCom is planned March 9-10, 2011, Kiel, Germany. Test signals using speech samples are under definition and revision of P.501 and P.502 are foreseen at next SG12 meeting.

The new question (Q18/12) on “Conferencing and Telemeeting Assessment” held its first meeting, with strong and active participation. Several contributions were received and more are awaited to help defining the factors affecting the perceived quality.

Results related to Recommendations

Consent was reached on three revised Recommendations:

  • P.311 "Transmission characteristics for wideband digital handset and headset telephones"
  • P.341 "Transmission characteristics for wideband digital loudspeaking and hands free telephony terminals"
  • P.1100 "Narrow-band hands-free communication in motor vehicles"

Other results

  • A new Handbook on Subjective Testing Practical Procedures was approved.
  • A new Supplement 25 to P-series was approved, “Recommendations on Parameters Describing the Interaction with Multimodal Dialogue System.”
  • Editorial correction to P.835 was approved.

Results of the meeting of Working Party 2/12 - Objective models and tools for multimedia quality

Results related to Recommendations

Consent was reached on revised Recommendation

  • P.56 “Objective measurement of active speech level” – a new Annex B on super-wide band measurement was added. 

Other results

  • The P.NAMS and P.NBAMS work items of Q14/12 are in a very active phase where technical documents for the planned subjective testing and the model selection competition are being finalized. In a very stable state are the Processing Chain Document, describing how to produce the degraded audio, video and audiovisual sequences; and the Test Plan for the upcoming training database subjective testing.
  • As P.863 (“Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Algorithm,” former P.OLQA) has passed the AAP without technical comments, the characterization phase was started at this meeting. It will give insights about P.863 behaviour in real live applications.
  • Q9/12 has spent huge efforts in defining statistical analysis methods and procedures for evaluation of objective methods. It was agreed to describe these proven methods in a separate Recommendation with the working title P.STAT.

Related activities

Since the last meeting of SG 12, VQEG held two meetings. Very important to SG12, the new Recommendation J.341 on the objective full-reference model for HDTV was approved. Further, the VQEG “Hybrid project” test plan was aligned with the P.NBAMS activities of SG12 where it was useful and possible. The final test plan for Hybrid can be expected early 2011.

Results of the meeting of Working Party 3/12 – Multimedia QoS and QoE

Results related to Recommendations

Consent was reached on the revision of two Recommendations:

  • G.1050 “Network model for evaluating multimedia transmission performance over Internet Protocol” – containing an electronic attachment
  • Y.1540 “Internet protocol data communication service – IP packet transfer and availability performance parameters”

and on one new Recommendation

  • Y.1564 (Y.1564)  “Ethernet service activation test methodology” 

Other results

  • There was agreement that under Question 11/12 a new work item on the end-to-end QoE aspects of tandemmed speech processing devices  (G.Tandem-QoE) should be started, and a close cooperation with Q18/16 is envisaged.
  • Under Question 17/12 a new work item, Y.QoSmap “QoS mapping and inter-working between Ethernet, IP and MPLS” was added.
  • Based on a proposal from QSDG, it was agreed to propose a joint work item between SG12 and SG2 on a revision of Rec. E.861, focusing on SLA and KPI.