Satellite communications are inherently prone to impairments such as high latency, jitter, packet loss, and limited bandwidth, which can significantly affect voice quality and user experience. To address this challenge, Maryland-based GL Communications has introduced a Voice Quality Testing (VQT) solution for satellite voice transmissions.
“The GL Voice Quality Testing (VQT) solution measures the impact of latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth limitations on voice performance.”
Robert Bichefsky, GL Communications
Satellite communications continue to improve in bandwidth, reliability, and coverage. These networks carry diverse traffic flows ranging from private internet use to mission critical voice and video communications. “The GL Voice Quality Testing (VQT) solution measures the impact of latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth limitations on voice performance and helps operators improve network efficiency,” said Robert Bichefsky, Director of Engineering at GL Communications. “GL’s vMobile hand-portable device, when connected to a mobile satellite phone or radio, provides reliable, repeatable tests to check clarity, delay, and speech quality over satellite channels—ensuring dependable communication for every use, from military operations to rural broadband services.”
GL’s vMobile is a compact, portable device for end-to-end voice testing over satellite, mobile, and radio networks. It connects directly to endpoint devices such as satellite phones or radios to place and receive live voice calls. The device sends audio through the network and records it at the other end for automated analysis using GL’s VQT application, which employs the POLQA (ITU-T P.863) algorithm to generate the Voice Quality Mean Opinion Score.
By comparing reference and received audio, vMobile accurately measures delay, jitter, and speech quality—even under long-delay satellite conditions. It supports diverse test scenarios with various audio files, including male and female voices, multiple languages, and tones, ensuring realistic evaluation of voice performance across satellite networks.
Test data can be viewed locally or uploaded to GL’s WebViewer dashboard for centralized monitoring, performance trending, and report generation across multiple test locations.