Login

• You may choose a user name and a password of your own, which will be used for your later visits.
  
• With your personal login details, you may access your test results later at any time.
  
• You may alter your personal registration details later at any time while logged in.
  
  

Online test page

• Once logged in to the 3SQM online test page the availability of OPTICOM call quality servers will be checked. OPTICOM will provide for various call quality servers to allow for the evaluation of long distance and international calls. After a short initialization phase the online test page will automatically be refreshed and you will be given the choice of available call quality servers.
  

From the online test page three choices are available by the tabs: 'new test', 'view results' and 'user data'

Start a 'new test'

• To configure a new test you have to choose one of the available call quality servers by checking the approriate radio-button.
  
  
• The availability can be seen in the last column in the shown list. In case that other measurements are currently running the server may be busy and you may want to wait a few minutes until it is available again. In case the server is temporarily out of service this will be indicated with the status message off-line.
  
  
• To start the test click on the 'start test'-button. The contents of the active page will change to show the status of the current test. After starting the test the server will be blocked for other users.
  

In the upper orange box titled 'status’ the current status of the test is displayed.


In the lower white box titled 'instructions’, you will be provided with the following instructions:

• Please dial on your phone the test call number that will be shown.

Note! For long distance and international access, please make sure to dial the proper prefix in addition to the proper country code (e.g. for a call to Germany, the country code is 49). [Please note that your regular tariffs will apply to a test call]

• Once connected to the 3SQM online call quality test server, you will hear a welcome message that asks you to talk after the beep.
  
  
• When prompted, please feel free to talk like in a real phone conversation.
  

Note! For reasonable results, you should talk for at least eight seconds and up to a maximum of one minute.

You may say anything you want in your preferred language, or, even better, you can speak the example test sequence as provided. This is advantagous if you want to do comparable measurements to avoid text dependancies. In any case you should make sure to insert one or two breaks of about two seconds duration each.


	For example you may want to say: Hello, this is <your name> calling. <... (2 sec break) ...> I want to test the voice quality with OPTICOM's new online test. <... (2 sec break) ...> I am calling from my <Mobile Phone / Home Phone / Voice-over-IP Phone / POTS Phone / ISDN Phone>.

• To finish the test call, please simply hang up and wait for the results being processed and displayed in this window. The results will appear under the ‘view results’-tab active automatically.

'View results'

• If you just have finished a new 3SQM test, you will be forwarded to this tab. You will be shown the detailed information of your currently measured telefony connection. If your measurement failed for any reason you will receive an error message.
  
  
• On top of the window, you will find a summary of the test, the amount of tests that you have left, the number of successful and failed tests.
  
  
• Below the test summary you will find the test details displayed in a table. For the interpretation of the results in the table please see below ('Interpretation of Results')
  

• If you click on the 'view results' tab, the window changes to an overview of the results of the current and all your previously evaluated test calls. Your results are organized in a table, that provides you with several information about your completed tests, like the final 3SQM-Result
  

• If you click on the loudspeaker symbol () that is displayed in every entry of a measured telefony connection, a separate window opens automatically and plays back your recorded and evaluated speech file. This feature allows you to listen to your phone call as it was received by the call quality server.
  
  
• If you click on the magnifying glass symbol () you will be shown the detailed information of the selected measurement. Especially you will find there the MOS-values of every measured speech segment. For further information see below.
  

Interpretation of Results

• After your phone call was recorded it may need some processing depending on the duration.
  
  
• Especially it is necessary to split long files into several segments that can be easily processed. The following figure shows a recorded speech signal divided up into several non-overlapping segments represented by different colors and sizes. 3SQM is applied to every single valid speech segment and outputs a MOS-value for each of them, as well as a mean value. The mean value represents the overall 3SQM-Result.
  

• 3SQM is a non-intrusive, single sided measurement, that is, it is not based on a comparison with a reference signal like for example [ PESQ ].
  
  For a correct interpretation of the results please note:
  
  
  • There is a dependency on male / female talkers. Therefore you should only compare the test results from one and the same talker.
    
  • The results are also dependent on the talkers voice characteristics (such as 'pitch'). Here you may encounter an offset on the absolute quality scale, too.
    
  • Under ideal conditions, the following examples of quality ranges should be experienced:

	Connection Quality range (MOS) Quality range (verbal) ISDN 3.9 ... 4.2 Good POTS 3.6 ... 4.0 Fair ... Good GSM – Full Rate 2.5 ... 3.5 Poor ... Fair

• The Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is a metrics developed by experts for ITU conforming listening tests. It represents the outcome of a listening test that reflects the averaged listener opinion on the quality of several speech files that belong to a certain test condition. The MOS-value ranges on a scale from 1 to 5 as shown below.
  

• If you like to get more detailed information on 3SQM and other voice quality measurements we would like to refer you to our [ website ] or feel free to contact us at info@opticom.de.
  

Change 'user data'

• Under the tab 'user data' you may wish to change your personal user details, like title, name, password etc.
  
  
• After you have made your changes press the button 'sign in' in order to update the system’s database.