JP2005311906A - Apparatus for acquiring basic data for voice quality calculation and program therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide technologies for acquiring basic data required for measuring voice quality all the time in a voice communication system wherein voice communication is performed via a packet communication network, without requiring much costs and further without wasting network resources, and technologies for measuring the voice quality using the basic data. <P>SOLUTION: A basic data acquisition apparatus comprises: a means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator; a means for communicating with a voice quality measuring instrument for measuring voice quality; a storage means for storing measuring condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data; and a control means for causing the packet communication network simulator to generate a packet communication status corresponding to one piece of packet communication quality data, for acquiring a result of measuring the voice quality in said packet communication status and performing processing for storing a result of the measurement in the storage means in accordance with the one piece of packet communication quality data on each piece of the plurality of packet communication quality data. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a voice quality measurement technique in a voice application (for example, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)) using a packet communication network.

  Voice applications using packet communication networks such as IP telephones have become widespread. The voice application system in the packet communication network is designed so that the voice quality can be ensured by using sufficient bandwidth and priority control technology. However, in a voice application system using a packet communication network, since the packet communication network is shared for communication between a plurality of terminals, terminals are compared with conventional telephone communication in which telephones are connected by a single line. The voice quality during the period is likely to fluctuate. Therefore, the voice quality assumed at the time of design is not always guaranteed, and the voice quality varies depending on the traffic fluctuation of the packet communication network.

  For this reason, in order to provide a stable voice communication service between terminals, it is necessary to constantly monitor the voice quality between terminals, and to take a corresponding action when the voice quality decreases. .

  In the conventional technology, when performing voice quality monitoring between two terminals in a voice application system, two voice quality measuring devices are always attached instead of the two terminals at both ends, and pseudo voices for voice quality evaluation are mutually transmitted and received. Were mutually measuring voice quality. When such voice quality monitoring is always performed in a voice application system having a large number of bases, it is necessary to always perform voice quality measurement using a voice quality measuring device in a number of sections.

Note that there is a technique described in Patent Document 1, for example, as a conventional technique related to voice quality in Internet telephone service.
JP 2003-249945 A

  However, the voice quality measuring apparatus used in the above-described conventional voice quality measuring method is expensive, and there is a problem that it requires a great deal of cost if this apparatus is always used at each site. Further, in the above conventional measurement method, pseudo voice is transmitted / received from the voice quality measurement device, so that unnecessary traffic is generated, and network resources to be used for voice communication by the user are wasted. There is.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and is necessary for performing continuous measurement of voice quality without requiring such a large cost and without consuming network resources wastefully. It is an object of the present invention to provide a technique for acquiring data and a technique for measuring voice quality using the basic data.

  In order to obtain the voice quality related to the voice communication between the terminals in the voice communication system that performs voice communication between the terminals via the packet communication network using the packet communication quality data of the voice communication system. A basic data acquisition apparatus for acquiring basic data to be used, comprising: means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator provided in the voice communication system; and voice quality relating to voice communication between terminals in the voice communication system. Means for communicating with a voice quality measuring device for measurement, storage means for storing measurement condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data, and one of the measurement condition data read from the storage means The packet communication network simulator generates a packet communication state corresponding to the packet communication quality data of Measurement result acquisition processing for causing the voice quality measurement device to measure voice quality in a communication state, acquiring a voice quality measurement result, and storing the measurement result in the storage means in association with the one packet communication quality data Can be solved by a basic data acquisition device comprising a control means for executing each of the plurality of packet communication quality data.

  According to the present invention, measurement results corresponding to a plurality of packet communication qualities can be easily and quickly acquired, so that basic data can be easily and quickly obtained. Therefore, it is possible to easily realize voice quality measurement that obtains voice quality from packet communication quality using basic data, and as a result, it is possible to perform voice without wasteful consumption of network resources without requiring much cost as in the past. It is possible to constantly measure quality.

  The voice communication system can be configured such that terminals at three or more bases can each communicate with other terminals via the packet communication network. In this case, in the measurement result acquisition process, the basic data acquisition device A measurement result corresponding to the one packet communication quality data is acquired for each combination of two sites, and the measurement result is stored in the storage unit in association with the one packet communication quality data and the combination of the two sites. .

  According to the present invention, it is possible to quickly acquire basic data in multiple sections.

  In addition, the present invention provides image quality related to image communication between the terminals in an image communication system that performs image communication between terminals via a packet communication network by using packet communication quality data of the image communication system. A basic data acquisition apparatus for acquiring basic data used in the communication system, means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator provided in the image communication system, and image quality related to image communication between terminals in the image communication system Means for communicating with the image quality output device for outputting the data, storage means for storing measurement condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data, and among the measurement condition data read from the storage means The packet communication network simulator generates a packet communication state corresponding to one packet communication quality data, and Image quality acquisition processing for acquiring image quality in the network communication state from the image quality output device and storing the image quality in the storage means in association with the one packet communication quality data. It can also be configured as a basic data acquisition device characterized by having control means for executing each of the data.

  According to the present invention, measurement results corresponding to a plurality of packet communication qualities can be easily and quickly acquired, so that basic data can be easily and quickly obtained. Therefore, it is possible to easily realize image quality measurement that obtains image quality from packet communication quality using basic data, and as a result, always measure image quality without consuming a great deal of cost and consuming network resources. Is possible.

  As described above, according to the present invention, measurement results corresponding to a plurality of packet communication qualities can be easily and quickly acquired, and thus basic data can be easily and quickly obtained. Therefore, it is possible to easily realize voice quality measurement that obtains voice quality from packet communication quality using basic data, and as a result, it is possible to perform voice without wasteful consumption of network resources without requiring much cost as in the past. It is possible to constantly measure quality.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(Overview)
First, the outline | summary of the audio | voice quality measuring method which concerns on this Embodiment is demonstrated.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a general configuration example of a voice application system using a packet communication network. In this configuration example, voice packetizers 1 and 3 that convert between packets and voice are connected to a packet communication network 5 such as an IP network, and PBXs 7 and 9 are connected to the voice packetizer, and a user can The terminals 11 and 13 to be used are connected to the PBXs 7 and 9. In the example shown in FIG. 1, the voice packetization device, the PBX, and the terminal constitute one base in a building premises, for example. Although many bases can be connected to the packet communication network 5, FIG. 1 shows two bases (base A and base B). In addition, the structure which consists of two bases is made into one system.

  In the system of FIG. 1, the voice signal is transmitted without being packetized in the section from the terminal 11 to the input portion of the voice packetizing apparatus 1. The voice packetizer 1 converts the voice signal into a packet, and the packet is transferred to the voice packetizer 3 by the packet communication network 5. Then, the voice packetizing device 3 converts the packet into a voice signal again and reaches the terminal 13 via the PBX 9. In this configuration, a section from the terminal to the input portion of the voice packetizer is referred to as a non-packet section, and a section from the voice packetizer 1 to the voice packetizer 3 is referred to as a packet section.

  Elements that have an influence on voice quality related to voice communication between terminals differ between non-packet sections and packet sections. That is, in the non-packet section, the type of voice coding method and transmission loss such as noise affect the voice quality, and in the packet section, packet delay, loss, fluctuation, and the like affect the voice quality.

  Of these, the impact on the voice quality due to the non-packet section differs from system to system because the length of the in-house wiring differs from site to site. Does not change unless changed. On the other hand, the degree of influence that the packet section has on the voice quality always changes depending on the traffic state of the packet communication network.

  In this embodiment, paying attention to the fact that the degree of influence on the voice quality by the non-packet section is constant, the packet communication quality (loss, delay, fluctuation) in the packet section and between the two terminals including the non-packet section A relationship between voice quality related to voice communication (hereinafter referred to as basic data) is obtained in advance, and only the packet communication quality of a packet section that is relatively easy to measure is always measured, and between the two terminals corresponding to the measured packet communication quality The voice quality is obtained from the basic data. Therefore, it is not necessary to perform continuous measurement using a voice quality measuring device between terminals as in the prior art.

(Audio quality continuous measurement method)
Next, a method for constantly measuring voice communication quality using the basic data will be described.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a system configuration example at the time of continuous voice quality measurement according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, an audio quality calculation server 15 that acquires packet communication quality information such as packet loss, delay, and fluctuation and outputs the audio communication quality by using the information is connected to the packet communication network 5. The In the following procedure, it is assumed that the basic data has already been acquired by the basic data acquisition device described later.

  With reference to the flowchart of FIG. 3, the procedure of voice quality measurement will be described.

  First, the voice quality calculation server 15 acquires basic data from the basic data acquisition device and stores it in the storage device (step 1). An example of basic data is shown in FIG. The example of FIG. 4 is basic data of a system including the base A and the base B, and packet communication quality and the corresponding index value are entered for each voice quality index. For example, the R value is 75 when the packet delay is 10 ms, the packet loss rate is 2%, and the fluctuation is 100 μsec.

  In FIG. 4, the R value is ITU-T GG. PESQ (Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality) is recommended by ITU-TP. The speech quality index recommended in 862, PSQM (Perceptual Speech Quality Measure) is ITU-TP 861 is an audio quality index recommended in 861. The user of the basic data may use any voice quality index among these.

The voice packetizer itself or a measurement device connected to the voice packetizer measures the loss rate, delay time, and fluctuation of packets generated during a call between the terminal at the base A and the terminal at the base B, and calculates voice quality The server 15 acquires the measurement result (step 2). The packet loss rate, delay time, and fluctuation can be measured by a conventional method, and the measurement method is exemplified below.
As a method for measuring the packet loss rate, for example, one of the following two methods (loss measurement method 1 and loss measurement method 2) can be used.

  Loss measurement method 1: In the case of a VoIP system that uses RTP (RFC1889) to exchange voice data, monitor all RTP packets with a voice packetizer, etc., and measure the missing sequence number set in the header section. From this, the packet loss rate is obtained.

  Loss measuring method 2: A device that monitors packets passing through the interface is connected to the interface on the packet communication network side of the voice packetizer, and passes between the voice packetizer on the sender side and the voice packetizer on the receiver side. The packet loss rate is obtained by measuring the difference in the number of packets.

  Further, as a method for measuring the packet delay time, for example, any one of the following three methods (delay measurement method 1, delay measurement method 2, and delay measurement method 3) can be used.

  Delay measurement method 1: In the case of a VoIP system using RTP (RFC1889) for exchanging voice data, the time used for the round trip of the RTCP packet exchanged between voice packetizers is measured, and this is taken as the round trip delay of the packet. The packet delay time is determined from this.

  Delay measurement method 2: In the case of a VoIP system that uses RTP (RFC1889) to exchange voice data, RTCP packets exchanged between voice packetizers are collected by an external device, and the time it takes to pass through the voice packetizer The difference is measured, the round trip delay of the packet is calculated from this, and the delay time is calculated.

  Delay measurement method 3: A device for monitoring a packet passing through is connected to the interface on the packet network side of the voice packetizer, and the packet delay time is obtained from the difference in the passage time of the same packet passing through each monitor point.

  The fluctuation of the packet is obtained, for example, by measuring the time difference between the packets continuously passing through the interface on the packet network side of the voice packetizer and measuring the fluctuation (maximum difference).

  Subsequently, the voice quality calculation server 15 refers to the basic data, and obtains a voice quality index corresponding to the packet communication quality from the acquired packet communication quality data (packet loss rate, delay time, fluctuation) during operation. Is obtained and output (step 3). For example, when the acquired packet communication quality data is loss rate: 3%, delay time: 20 ms, fluctuation: 80 μsec, R value: 68, PESQ: 3.6, PSQM: 3 from the basic data in FIG. .6 is output.

  In addition, when a system of many sections exists, basic data as shown in FIG. 4 is stored for each section. Then, by using the packet communication quality measurement data acquired corresponding to the specific system and the basic data corresponding to the specific system, a voice quality index corresponding to the system is output. This process is performed for each section.

(Basic data acquisition method)
As described above, in this embodiment, voice quality in voice communication between actual terminals corresponding to packet communication quality is measured first (for example, immediately after system construction), and the measurement result is obtained as basic data. Keep it. Hereinafter, the acquisition method of basic data is demonstrated in detail.

  An example of a system configuration for obtaining basic data is shown in FIG. 5 shows two bases (base A and base B), it is assumed that there are other bases connected to the packet communication network 5.

  As shown in FIG. 5, voice quality measuring devices 17 and 19 are provided instead of terminals at bases at both ends of a section for which basic data is acquired. In addition, a network simulator 21 (indicated as an NW simulator in FIG. 5) is provided on a path through which a packet converted from voice transmitted from both bases passes. The voice quality measuring devices 17 and 19 and the network simulator 21 are connected to the basic data acquisition device 23.

  The basic data acquisition device 23 is a device for controlling the network simulator 21 and the voice quality measurement devices 17 and 19 and acquiring basic data. Management of measurement conditions, measurement data (measured by the voice quality measurement device) Audio quality data) is edited, and the result is output as basic data shown in FIG. 4 in a constant measurement format. The network simulator 21 is a device that enables delay, loss, and fluctuation of a packet designated by the basic data acquisition device 23 between the voice packetization devices 1 and 3 according to the control of the basic data acquisition device 23. is there. The voice quality measuring devices 17 and 19 are devices that measure the voice quality in analog according to the control of the basic data acquisition device 23. The measurement index is the aforementioned PSQM, PESQ, R value, or the like. That is, the basic data acquisition device 23 controls the network simulator 21 to generate a desired delay and the like, the voice quality measurement devices 17 and 19 measure the voice quality at that time, and the basic data acquisition device 23 acquires the measurement result. It is the structure to do.

  FIG. 6 shows a configuration example of the basic data acquisition device 23.

  As shown in FIG. 6, the basic data acquisition device 23 includes a data input interface 231 for inputting measurement conditions, a result storage database 232 for storing measurement conditions and measurement results, acquisition of measurement conditions stored in the database 232, and the like. A measurement condition management unit 233 for performing an operation, a basic data editing unit 234 for editing the input measurement conditions into a basic data format, an external device control unit 235 for controlling an external device, and address information for storing address information of the external device Storage unit 236, network simulator control interface 237 for communicating with the network simulator, measuring device control interface 238 for communicating with the voice quality measuring device, and basic data output for outputting the measurement result to the voice quality calculating server An interface 239 is provided.

  The basic data acquisition device 23 can be realized by a computer equipped with a program for executing the processing of each functional unit described above. The measurement conditions, address information, measurement results, etc. are stored in the storage device of the computer.

  Next, the operation of the basic data acquisition apparatus 23 having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  First, through the data input interface 231, the user inputs condition data (number of measurement points (number of voice quality measuring devices), steady delay of the packet communication network, etc.) necessary for measurement of basic data. The basic data editing unit 234 of the measuring device 23 edits the measurement pattern based on the condition data and stores it in the database 232 (step 11). The steady delay of the packet communication network is used to determine the minimum delay in the measurement pattern. An example of measurement pattern data is as shown in FIG. 8, which corresponds to the basic data in FIG. 4 in which the voice quality evaluation value column is blank. When there are three or more bases, the measurement pattern data shown in FIG. 8 is created for each base combination (section). It is assumed that a number is associated with each measurement condition including packet delay, loss rate, and fluctuation. In addition, it is assumed that a number is associated with each section. For example, the first measurement condition is packet delay: 10 ms, packet loss rate: 1%, and fluctuation: “100 μsec or less”. Further, for example, the section from the base A to the base B is set as the first section. In addition, information (referred to as measurement section data) for identifying a combination of voice quality measurement apparatuses is stored for each section.

  The measurement condition management unit 233 of the basic data acquisition device 23 reads the Nth (initially first) measurement condition data (packet loss rate, delay time, fluctuation) from the measurement pattern data (steps 12 and 13).

  Subsequently, the external device control unit 235 of the basic data acquisition device 23 acquires the address information of the network simulator 21 from the address information storage unit 236, and is controlled by the external device control unit 235 through the network simulator control interface 237. 21 is connected (step 14).

  Then, the basic data acquisition device 23 sets the measurement condition data read in step 13 in the network simulator 21 (step 15). The network simulator 21 is configured to transmit a confirmation message to the basic data acquisition device 23 when the designated measurement condition data is set, and the basic data acquisition device 23 receives the confirmation message. Then, it is confirmed that the measurement condition data can be normally set in the network simulator 21 (Y in step 16). If the setting is NG, the process ends abnormally (N in Step 16).

  Subsequently, the measurement condition management unit 233 of the basic data acquisition device 23 reads the M (initially 1) th measurement section data (combination of voice quality measurement devices) stored in the database 232 (steps 17 and 18). ), The external device control unit 235 performs control based on the data, and the basic data acquisition device 23 is connected to the voice quality measurement device indicated in the measurement section data (step 19).

  Then, the external device control unit 235 of the basic data acquisition device 23 instructs the voice quality measurement device in the measurement target section to start measurement of the voice quality (step 20), and the measurement result from the voice quality measurement device. (R value, PESQ, PSQM, etc.) are received (step 21).

  The basic data measuring device 23 determines whether or not the received measurement result is normal (step 22), and if normal, stores the measurement result in the database 232 (step 23). Specifically, the measurement result acquired under the Nth measurement condition is stored in association with the Nth measurement condition in the measurement pattern of FIG. 8 corresponding to the section between the base A and the base B. If the measurement result is not normal in step 22, for example, an error message is output as abnormal termination.

  And the process of steps 18-25 is repeatedly performed, changing a measurement area until the measurement of all the areas is complete | finished. Further, the processes in steps 12 to 27 are repeated until the measurement under all measurement conditions is completed. An example of the output result obtained by the above processing is as shown in FIG. However, FIG. 4 shows only one section of data.

  As described above, according to the voice quality measurement method of the present embodiment, the voice quality can be obtained only by measuring the packet communication quality that is relatively easy to measure without using the voice quality measurement device at all times. Therefore, it is possible to easily monitor voice quality at a lower cost and more easily than in the past. In addition, by using the basic data acquisition device, it is possible to automatically and quickly acquire basic data used in the voice quality measurement method.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications and applications can be made within the scope of the claims. In the above example, the present invention is applied to the measurement of voice quality. However, the present invention is not limited to voice communication and can be applied to any media information communication that can be perceived by humans. For example, the present invention can be applied to moving image communication. Even in the case of video communication, the basic data is obtained by actually measuring the video quality while changing the packet communication quality, and the video quality is obtained from the basic data using only the communication quality measurement result of the packet communication network. . When acquiring basic data, instead of using a moving image quality measurement device, humans input moving image quality into a computer (referred to as an image quality output device) by looking at the terminal screen. May be output from the image quality output device to the basic data acquisition device. In this embodiment, data indicating packet loss, data indicating packet delay, and data indicating packet fluctuation are used as the packet communication quality, but one or two of these, or other The packet communication quality data may be used.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the voice | voice application system using a packet communication network. It is a figure which shows the example of a system configuration | structure at the time of audio | voice quality regular measurement. It is a flowchart for demonstrating the procedure of audio | voice quality measurement. It is a figure which shows an example of basic data. It is a figure which shows the system configuration example for acquiring basic data. It is a figure which shows the structural example of the basic data acquisition apparatus. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the basic data acquisition device 23. It is a figure which shows the example of the data of a measurement pattern.

Explanation of symbols

1, 3 Voice packetizer 5 Packet communication network 7, 9 PBX
11, 13 Terminal 15 Voice quality calculation server 17, 19 Voice quality measurement device 21 Network simulator 23 Basic data acquisition device 231 Data input interface 232 Result storage database 233 Measurement condition management unit 234 Basic data editing unit 235 External device control unit 236 Address information Storage unit 237 Network simulator control interface 238 Measuring device control interface 239 Basic data output interface

Claims (7)

Basic data used for obtaining voice quality related to voice communication between terminals in a voice communication system that performs voice communication between terminals via a packet communication network using packet communication quality data of the voice communication system A basic data acquisition device for acquiring
Means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator provided in the voice communication system;
Means for communicating with a voice quality measuring device for measuring voice quality related to voice communication between terminals in the voice communication system;
Storage means for storing measurement condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data;
The packet communication network simulator generates a packet communication state corresponding to one packet communication quality data in the measurement condition data read from the storage means, and the voice quality measuring device measures the voice quality in the packet communication state A measurement result acquisition process for acquiring a measurement result of voice quality and storing the measurement result in the storage means in association with the one packet communication quality data, for each of the plurality of packet communication quality data And a control means for executing the basic data acquisition device.   2. The packet communication quality data according to claim 1, wherein the packet communication quality data includes one or more of data indicating packet loss, data indicating packet delay, and data indicating packet fluctuation in the packet communication network. Basic data acquisition device. The voice communication system is configured such that terminals at three or more bases can perform voice communication with other terminals via the packet communication network.
In the measurement result acquisition process, the basic data acquisition apparatus acquires a measurement result corresponding to the one packet communication quality data for each combination of two sites, and the measurement result is used as the one packet communication quality data and the 2 The basic data acquisition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the basic data acquisition apparatus stores the information in the storage unit in association with a combination of bases. Basic data used to obtain image quality related to image communication between the terminals in an image communication system that performs image communication between terminals via a packet communication network using packet communication quality data of the image communication system A basic data acquisition device for acquiring
Means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator provided in the image communication system;
Means for communicating with an image quality output device for outputting image quality relating to image communication between terminals in the image communication system;
Storage means for storing measurement condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data;
The packet communication network simulator generates a packet communication state corresponding to one packet communication quality data in the measurement condition data read from the storage means, and acquires the image quality in the packet communication state from the image quality output device And control means for executing, on each of the plurality of packet communication quality data, an image quality acquisition process for storing the image quality in the storage means in association with the one packet communication quality data. A basic data acquisition device. Basic data used for obtaining voice quality related to voice communication between terminals in a voice communication system that performs voice communication between terminals via a packet communication network using packet communication quality data of the voice communication system A program for causing a computer to realize the function of a basic data acquisition device for acquiring a computer,
Means for communicating with a packet communication network simulator provided in the voice communication system;
Means for communicating with a voice quality measuring device for measuring voice quality related to voice communication between terminals in the voice communication system;
Means for storing measurement condition data including a plurality of predetermined packet communication quality data in the storage means of the computer;
The packet communication network simulator generates a packet communication state corresponding to one packet communication quality data in the measurement condition data read from the storage means, and the voice quality measuring device measures the voice quality in the packet communication state. A measurement result acquisition process for acquiring a measurement result of voice quality and storing the measurement result in the storage means in association with the one packet communication quality data for each of the plurality of packet communication quality data Control means to perform,
Program to function as. A process for obtaining voice quality related to voice communication between the terminals in the voice communication system by using the basic data acquired by the basic data acquisition device according to claim 1 is connected to the voice communication system. A method executed by a voice quality calculation server,
Obtaining the basic data and storing in the storage means of the voice quality calculation server;
Obtaining packet communication quality data from the voice communication system;
Obtaining voice quality corresponding to the obtained packet communication quality data from the basic data and outputting the voice quality.   The voice communication system includes a voice packetizing device that converts a voice signal from a terminal into a packet and outputs the packet to a packet communication network, and converts a packet received from the packet communication network into a voice signal and outputs the voice signal. The method according to claim 6, wherein the server acquires the packet communication quality data from the voice packetizer.

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