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Pillar: No-Code OSS

Quality of Service Monitoring with TR-143

Discover how TR-143 allows broadband Network Service Providers a tool to measure QoS using the Active Monitoring.

By Jorge Torres Pava
TR-143

TL;DR

Discover how TR-143 allows broadband Network Service Providers a tool to measure QoS using the Active Monitoring.

Key takeaways

  • The rapid growth in user demand for Internet connectivity has created both opportunities and challenges for telecommunications companies.
  • The Broadband Forum’s TR-143 technical specification allows network performance testing on CPEs that support the TR-069 specification.
  • TR-143 allows broadband Network Service Providers a tool to measure the quality of service (QoS) using the Active Monitoring of the broadband access network.

The rapid growth in user demand for Internet connectivity has created both opportunities and challenges for telecommunications companies. The CPEs (Customer Premises Equipment, such as Modems, routers, set-top boxes, VOIP-phones, etc.) management was provided by the Broadband Forum technical specification, TR-069, which through the CWMP protocol (CPE WAN Management Protocol) allows bidirectional communication between a CPE and the ACS (Auto configuration server) to perform remote management tasks of the CPEs such as auto-configuration, software or firmware image management, status and performance management, and diagnosis.

What is TR-143?

The Broadband Forum’s TR-143 technical specification allows network performance testing on CPEs that support the TR-069 specification. TR-143 allows broadband Network Service Providers a tool to measure the quality of service (QoS) using the Active Monitoring of the broadband access network.

Active Monitoring is described as controlled traffic diagnostic suites that are network-layer-centric and agnostic to the underlying access network. Diagnostics that use standard TCP and UDP-based protocols and are controlled through diagnostic objects can be applied to any CPE device. The remote endpoints can be placed throughout the Provider network at strategic locations to determine possible points of network congestion or fault. Active Monitoring can also be used to characterize the quality of paths in the broadband access network.

TR-143 uses the following tests:

  • Upload: Files by FTP o HTTP
  • Download: Files by FTP o HTTP
  • UDP Echo / UDP EchoPlus: Ping or latency tests
  • ServerSelection: Selection of servers for testing (other than ACS).

Types of diagnoses:

  1. CPE-initiated diagnostics: The ACS sends the request to the CPE, which pretends to be an FTP or HTTP client.
  2. Network-initiated diagnostics: Test servers are defined (different from the ACS, to minimize the load on the network), which send UDP Echo tests to previously selected CPEs, which respond to the requests.
  3. Time-based throughput testing: In the case of time-based tests, several network speeds are combined and evaluated with a defined test duration. This makes it possible to determine how many bytes of messages were sent or received via the network at what time and throughput.

A very useful feature includes:

Multi-Threading/Connections: Single TCP connection tests have limitations that do not allow for higher rate throughput testing easily. To increase the rate at which a specific link can be tested, multi-threading/connection capability is being added in TR-143 Amendment 1. This allows for multiple concurrent TCP connections for a single throughput test. Depending on the chosen mode, these tests can be file size or time-based. The test results are assigned to each individual connection until the test is completed. If one of the connections breaks off or sends an error message, the entire test has failed.

Recap

TR-143 has created a wide variety of tools for monitoring QoS in broadband access networks. This type of solution can be implemented for Closed-Loop cases. When a Quality-of-Service problem is detected in an area or sector of the network, it can be corrected by automatically adjusting the network parameters that cause the affectation when integrated with an orchestration solution such as Symphonica. Symphonica is a revolutionary No-code OSS, cloud-native Orchestration, Activation and Provisioning platform for forward-looking Telecom companies.

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