Don’t set metrics for jitter, telecoms tell CRTC

There is no need to set thresholds for jitter as part of the basic service standard, telecoms said in interventions to a CRTC consultation Monday. The regulator launched the consultation in July, when it issued standards governing latency, data packet loss and jitter -- the rate at which packets of data arrive to their destination out of the correct order and cause slowdown and disruption -- all as part its basic service standard, which sets out the minimum internet service that should be available to all Canadians. The CRTC declined to set a standard for jitter, instead launching a consultation. It said at the time that its CISC Network Working Group hadn’t been able to come to a consensus on an appropriate threshold for jitter, and that the CRTC didn’t have enough data on the record to make the decision. Telus Corp. and Quebecor Inc. both pointed out that effects of jitter are managed by the use of jitter buffers. Telus said the effectiveness of this measure, used by application developers, “has reduced the importance of controlling jitter in the network, to the extent that it is no longer viewed as being as important as it once might have been.” Cogeco Inc. also argued that no threshold is necessary, outlining that it “surveyed past proceedings, public online forums and its own customers and has never noted any significant issues regarding jitter coming from broadband Internet users.” It said the speed, latency and packet loss thresholds that the CRTC already established are sufficient to ensure customers can have a smooth experience using all common internet applications, and that a jitter threshold would offer no additional value. “Jitter can be compensated by better latency. And it can be added that large jitter usually results in packets being lost,” it said. “With both latency and packet loss being actively measured by ISPs and having thresholds determined by the Commission, monitoring jitter adds no relevant information and presents little interest as a tool to control the quality of the fixed broadband Internet service.” However, consultant Hyman Glustein and Concordia University professor Fenwick McKelvey said in their submission that the CRTC should establish a “coherent value” for jitter. “To best determine this, we recommend that the CRTC authorize a third-party study of jitter, by an independent authority not affiliated with the Canadian telecom industry, to produce a report that determines the appropriate jitter based on a survey of average application buffer management techniques that ensures 0.25% packet loss with presumed ISP network latency of 50 ms RTT,” the standards set by the CRTC in July for those two measures, they said. — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca

Don’t set metrics for jitter, telecoms tell CRTC

News | August 15, 2018

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Don’t set metrics for jitter, telecoms tell CRTC

News | August 15, 2018

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