LAS VEGAS--Spirent Communications announced at TelecomNext here a new solution that it described as a "quality of experience" test system aimed directly at IPTV deployment in which subscriber experience is expected to become a more meaningful quality measurement.

The Spirent IPTV Quality of Experience (QoE) Test System is able to emulate the triple play network environment and provide visibility into the subscriber's quality of experience. "We can emulate thousands of customers and do all that in the customer lab," said Bahaa Moukadam, vice president, IP Telephony at Spirent Communications. This capability is based on the company's embrace of V-FactorT fidelity technology, which maximizes video quality as perceived by a subscriber and lets the service provider see how network performance issues impact this perceived quality.

Previous metrics related to subscriber experience mostly came from service providers sttempting to infer what the usage experience was like from their own network performance measurements, Moukadam said.

Spirent's IPTV test initiative encompasses all three phases of network deployment: testing each network element for scalability and QoS in the lab; testing the system end-to-end in the field to introduce service quickly; assuring the deployed service; and the provisioning and diagnostics to fix problems fast and maintain QoE. "We can now be the human eyeball at the end points and all the points in between," Moukadam said.

Spirent also announced at the show that it is partnering with Adva Optical Networking.