How Different QoS Mechanisms Affect VoIP QoS Metrics

Abstract: Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become a key technology of communication. Our work has been a practical implemenation of different scenarios to show that VoIP voice quality can be improved by adopting certain Quality of Service(QoS) measures such as classification, marking or queuing. It has been discussed that different QoS metrics like delay, packet loss and jitter could affect the voice quality of VoIP. To reduce the negative affects, one option is to implement certain QoS mechanisms with some set of configurations. For this purpose, Cisco IP phones have been configured in our topology with routers, switches, traffic generators, end stations and VoIP quality monitoring software called VQmanager. Tests have been divided into two sets. In one test a fixed bandwidth of 70 kbps is set while in the other test a random bandwidth is set with trafic generators unleashing packets of traffic. In both these tests further scenarios with configurations are worked out. They include no QoS, Auto Qos and Customized Qos mechanisms. Results have been indicative of top performance by the Customized QoS mechanism, in both sets of tests, followed by Auto QoS and no QoS mechanisms. It has been observed that a customized scenario could be a particular configuration to any organization’s needs and that will have the lowest delay, jitter and packet loss which are the main QoS metrics that impact the voice quality of VoIP. It  can be fundamentally composed of classification of voice, data or web-traffic, marking and queuing depending upon the need of the organization. It is finally suggested to carry more tests in companies to get more data for analysis