Quality-based playout buffering with FEC for conversational voIP

In Voice-over-IP, buffer delay and packet loss are two main factors effecting perceived conversational quality. A quality-based algorithm aims to seek an optimum balancing of delay versus loss. To improve perceived quality further, steps should be taken to mitigate the effect of losses due to network (missing packets) and buffer underflow (late packets) without increasing buffer delays. In this paper, we propose a quality-based playout algorithm with an FEC design based on conversational quality including calling quality and interactivity. The simulation results show our algorithm’s efficiency of correcting for losses (isolated and burst) and improving perceived conversational quality.