Subscriber experience management, or SEM, may be a mouthful, but it is also rooted in a fairly ancient idea about quality of service: The customer is always right.

It may be too early to say if SEM will be the next buzz phrase that telecom industry cognoscenti attempt to roll off their tongues, but the concept is capturing quite a bit of attention in the test and measurement (T&M) market.

Spirent Communications, the long-standing communications test company based in the U.K., recently acquired SwissQual, a T&M company serving wireless network operators and whose primary products fall into the SEM segment. Simply put, SEM tests QOS for various applications from a user perspective, rather than from a network-outward perspective. Within the last few years, wireless industry observers have indicated that this is the direction mobile services testing needs to take as applications increasingly move beyond voice and into data, video and other content. QOS for these applications can be much more subjective than for voice.

“Subscriber experience management is something that is just starting to gain acceptance from a market perspective,” said Parag Sheth, senior vice president of corporate marketing for Spirent. “Mobile video is really the next big thing in mobile services, and carriers have to deliver mobile video applications that are up to their customers' standards for what they are willing to watch.”

Spirent made the SwissQual acquisition — a $70.5 million deal — just as the market for mobile video is beginning to heat up. MobiTV has had success teaming with various carriers to deliver a range of TV channels and content to their subscribers. Verizon Wireless has launched several mobisodes over its network, and a Points North Group study of the market recently suggested that sponsor-supported mobile video deals are in the works — something that will likely make the decision of whether or not to offer mobile video content much easier for carriers.

SEM, meanwhile, can help make sure the customers of those services are happy. “People don't think about much, but test and measurement has gone through a lot of evolution over the last several years,” Sheth said. “Little by little, it's getting closer to testing the quality that the user experiences.”