Agilent N2X

• Emulate up to 2048 dynamic triple play subscribers per port
• Generate video, voice and stateful data traffic
• Validate IPTV and Microsoft TV (MSTV) service quality using scalable MDI metrics
• Measure the impact of channel zapping and other triple play services on IPTV QoE
• Capture, replay and decode IPTV and MSTV traffic for greater insight
• Validate IPTV infrastructure scalability limits by emulating and measuring thousands of subscribers and 500 channels per port of actual video
• Quantify IPTV QoE degradation due to the impact of other triple play services, such as time-sensitive voice and bursty data traffic
• Create a real-world test environment, helping to ensure IPTV quality isn’t compromised by network instabilities, by emulating dynamic subscriber behavior such as channel zapping, new Internet connection requests and DHCP session-flapping
• Validate IPTV service quality for every subscriber through per subscriber MDI video quality measurements
• View actual video quality by replaying captured video, providing faster “time to insight”

Media quality’ refers to the visible and/or audio quality as perceived by the subscriber. Video traffic is extremely sensitive to network impairments, such as packet loss, latency, jitter, bit errors and out-of-sequence packets. These impairments can severely compromise the media quality viewed by subscribers and manifest themselves in terms of video blocking, blurring, edge distortion, judder, visual/audio noise, and lip-sync problems. Network Equipment Manufacturers and Service Providers must verify network equipment can maintain an acceptable level of media quality under increasing traffic loads and network volatility.

N2X is the only test system that combines the generation and analysis of thousands of video, data and voice traffic streams with the emulation of thousands of dynamic subscribers to test network equipment under real-world Multiplay network conditions. N2X can uniquely test the scalability limits of each network device, as defined by RFC 4445, by measuring Media Delivery Index (MDI) delay factor and loss metrics for tens of thousands of individual subscribers simultaneously.

Dynamic subscriber simulation

N2X can simulate up to 2048 subscribers per port, and tens of thousands per system. N2X simulates realistic Multiplay customers, with each subscriber using IPTV services on up to 4 different Set Top Boxes, in addition to VoIP and Internet services. N2X provides complete control over behavior of each simulated subscriber and service so you can identify how this network instability impacts IPTV service quality.

Combined video, voice and data traffic generation

N2X can generate full line rate IPTV video traffic on 512 channels per GbE port. You can send up to four unique video clips on each channel, and combine different video traffic profiles from a pre-defined library of source clips along with other background service traffic to stress the device or network under test and determine how this impacts QoE.

Highly scalable video quality metrics

N2X can uniquely test the scalability limits of each network device, as defined by RFC 4445, by measuring Media Delivery Index (MDI) delay factor and loss metrics on a per subscriber basis.

Comprehensive testing for IPTV and Multiplay services

Agilent offers a powerful and comprehensive solution for testing IPTV Quality of Experience and the scalability, reliability and underlying security of Multiplay services.

Please see the IPTV literature library for more information on the N2X IPTV solution.  

• IPTV Channel Zapping Performance

Journal test case 135 - Access Node IPTV QoE Performance

The test validates the access node (e.g., DSLAM) QoS prioritization performance and stress resilience under real-world Multiplay network conditions.

• View Test Plan (Registration is required). Register hereto view and download your FREE copy of the Journal of Internet Test Methodologies containing this and many other example test cases.