Passive Estimation of Quality of Experience

Quality of Experience (QoE) is a promising method to take into account the users' needs in designing, monitoring and managing networks. However, there is a challenge in finding a quick and simple way to estimate the QoE due to the diversity of needs, habits and customs. We propose a new empirical method to approximate it automatically from passive network measurements and we compare its pros and cons with usual techniques. We apply it, as an example, on ADSL traffic traces to estimate the QoE dependence on the loss rate for the most used applications. We analyze more precisely the correlations between packet losses and some traffic characteristics of TCP connections, the duration, the sizes and the inter-arrival. We define different thresholds on the loss rate for network management. And we propose a notion of sensitiveness to compare these correlations on different applications.