On the Incorporation of Quality of Experience (QoE) in Mobile Networks A technical, regulatory and business analysis

Sammanfattning: Mobile operators face a scenario characterised by new challenges such as growing data consumption, a slowdown in subscriber growth and reduced revenues due to the success of OTT providers. To remain competitive, mobile operators must offer affordable services and think on strategies to retain current customers.Quality of Experience (QoE) is a well-established methodology for measuring and understanding the overall level of customer satisfaction with a service and has been presented as a way to improve telecommunication services. Even though QoE can be used to solve problems such as customer loyalty and optimisation of network resources in mobile networks, there is a great lack of knowledge on how mobile operators can take advantage of QoE and its potential benefits.This thesis explores the incorporation of QoE in mobile networks to improve their service offering from a technical, regulatory and business perspective.The technical level focuses on the definition of the mechanism to integrate QoE in the operation of mobile networks. The second part of this study has been focused on the regulatory framework on Net Neutrality. Finally,the third part of this thesis focuses on the identification of potential business scenarios and models based on the incorporation of QoE in mobile networks. An important conclusion is that due to the nature of the challenges faced by the mobile industry, a QoE analysis cannot be limited to a technical discussion. A technical solution can be the first step to the first step to overcoming industry challenges. However, it is important that a technical decision comes along with an informed analysis of the regulatory conditions and the business implications of the proposed solution. On the other hand, mobile operators require new methods that integrate technical, market and business considerations to improve their service offer. A method analysed in this dissertation is a Customer Experience Management (CEM) platform. Given the technical, regulatory and business factors covered in this thesis, a CEM platform can be used by mobile operators to make a better use of QoE in their business operation.