Lay Person's Guide to QoS
Let's say that a popular entertainer decides to live stream her mid-afternoon concert over
YouTube and several of your employees tune in - at the same time. Would your mission critical
applications maintain top priority status or would your most important business applications be
forced to wait until network traffic returns to normal?
What is Best-Effort Delivery?
If your network infrastructure is based upon “best-effort” data transmission, situations such as
the one described above could put your business in a bind. Best-effort plans manage network
traffic on a “first-come, first served basis”. While these plans may be more affordable than
using a private network, the tradeoff is that you're forced to share your data connection with
countless other customers.
The best-effort delivery model works well for consumers and small businesses that use the
Internet intermittently to carry out routine online functions. However, these plans are
inadequate for businesses with frequent urgent data delivery needs.
For instance, some of the most common VoIP services – such as Skype and Vonage -- rely on
best effort delivery; i.e., shared Internet networks to power their products. Sometimes the calls
are crystal clear, while other times you may as well be talking underwater.
What is QoS?
QoS stands for quality of service. It refers to the overall performance of a computer network.
In today’s business environment it is vital that you have the ability to determine which
applications are treated as high priorities and which applications are given lower priority status.
Otherwise, your most important traffic would be forced to compete with low-priority
applications.
The purpose of implementing QoS, within your network, is to ensure consistent and predictable
performance. If your business utilizes VoIP, video conferencing, video on demand or any other
applications that have the potential to affect your bottom line, QoS can have a tremendous
impact on your operations.
In contrast to best-effort plans that use shared networks; QoS plans typically use private
network connections. Here are a few things to consider before choosing someone to manage
your network.
What Happens on a Non-QoS Enabled Network
Networks that don't utilize QoS treat all data the same, resulting in slowdowns throughout the
network. It’s like sending your data through a crowded subway without any priority. This leads
to a lower quality experience to users and customers attempting to utilize voice. Additionally,
this approach to data management means that you have no control over how your data
capacity is allocated.
Network Quality
Network quality has the potential to make or break your organization. As a business you need
to know that no matter what, your network can handle the data packets that transmit the
required application data.
For example, if a VoIP call comes in and the voice data isn’t prioritized; then you will most likely
experience poor call quality. As a result, key portions of the call may be translated wrong or
could be unintelligible on the receiving end. Translating the wrong information can affect your
sales flow, frustrate your customers and lead to communication problems throughout your
organization.
These types of issues often arise when networks are unable to distinguish between a data
packet and a voice data packet. This can become problematic if your information is routed
based on efficiency; i.e., expediting data packets that don’t have voice. That’s because although
the voice packets may be time-sensitive, they may not get delivered in a timely manner – unless
they’re prioritized.
How Data Prioritization Works
Equivoice can prioritize your applications by assigning a Class of Service (CoS) to each data
packet. The CoS determines the priority data type on your network. Instead of having
unidentified packets flowing throughout your network, each data packet needing priority is
assigned a CoS. The network looks at the data and puts it in the proper CoS.
For example, a CoS is similar to how airline flights classify their seating. First class, business class
and economy class would be classes of service in this scenario. You define the privileges of
these classes as a distinct set similar to the seating on an airline.
The first class gets the most comfortable seats, great meals, first boarding and other perks.
Moving down to business class, you still have nice seats, but the meals aren't quite as good and
the perks aren't as numerous. Then you have economy class, which guarantees you a seat and
that's all. Each privilege is part of the QoS processes that elevate the priority for the data
packets.
When data packets move through the network, think of the boarding process on airlines. The
first class gets boarded first, followed by business and tailed by economy class. The first class
data packets get their bandwidth allocation before any other classes touch it. A QoS network
creates a CoS for voice, marking it as top priority. Your data network can get busy throughout
the day due to customer and user demands. Once it reaches a certain load level, QoS kicks in
and ensures that only the most important data gets through, while lower priority data waits
until bandwidth is available.
QoS Configuration
QoS implementation starts at the origination point and ends at the receiving caller. The local
customer’s network and the service provider need QoS on both ends in order to get the highest
quality. Equivoice utilizes an end-to-end QoS setup so your mission-critical communication
solutions always receive top priority. We can guarantee an improvement in quality for your
VoIP and IP infrastructure.
Get More from Your QoS
Want to make your customers and employees happy at the same time? Implement QoS and
you’ll eliminate poor network quality; resulting in an improvement in sales, customer support
and employee satisfaction. We can explain exactly how it would work with your existing
network and plan a trouble-free deployment.
For more information on deploying QoS solutions for your network, contact Equivoice today at
800-398-6696.