Agilent Technologies has announced that its N2X multiservices test solution is a solution for validating Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service quality for thousands of subscribers on IPv6 network architectures, also referred to as next-generation networks (NGNs). Network equipment manufacturers and service providers can use the N2X solution to characterize the ability of individual IPv6 network elements or entire networks to meet IPTV Quality of Experience (QoE) expectations prior to deployment.

The Agilent N2X solution emulates IPv6 triple-play subscribers and generates high-bandwidth IPTV, Voice over IP (VoIP), and stateful data traffic to identify the true service quality experienced by every IPTV subscriber.

Major carriers are investing heavily in NGN IPv6 networks. These networks offer a variety of services to subscribers including IPTV, VoIP, and high-speed Internet service over a high bandwidth broadband infrastructure. A critical success factor for increasing IPTV service adoption and subscriber retention is satisfaction with the service quality.

Dynamic subscriber behaviors, such as IPTV channel zapping, combined with a mix of triple-play traffic, severely stresses network equipment, potentially compromising video quality. Agilent's N2X IPTV QoE Productivity Application for IPv6 addresses these issues and characterizes the service-quality aspects on a per-subscriber basis. Each N2X port can emulate thousands of IPTV subscribers with simulated dynamic behaviors, as well as generate and receive highly scalable combinations of video, voice and stateful data traffic. The 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.