Technical Details

When outside or on the move, inconsistent network performance can result in poor user experience with unresponsive applications, closed connections, and sub-optimal service. The Quality on Demand API (QoD) allows you to tell the network your desired application performance characteristics, by using one of the available QoD profiles. If the network honors the request, your application could benefit from more consistent performance.

Why use the Quality on Demand API?

By sharing your application performance requirements with the mobile network through the QoD API, you could get more consistent performance for existing features, launch new features, and develop new monetization strategies, leading to:

• The enablement of new features requiring network capabilities that can’t be offered today due to inconsistent network performance.
• Improved customer retention and brand value through consistent performance with high quality video conferencing, streaming, cloud gaming, and more.
• A potential increase in revenue by charging extra for network boost services.

Some example scenarios include:

• Media and entertainment: Real-time streaming or mobile gaming requires excellent network performance to ensure the best connection. Applications must send a continuous stream so that backends can process with speed and consistency.
• Remote control of machines and vehicles: Applications requiring remote control machines or vehicles require stable data throughput and low latency. Requirements can change dynamically, for example if you are piloting a drone that's transmitting video data. Network optimization through the QoD API can help ensure a stable connection.
• Industrial AR/VR: Provide assurance for baseline AR/VR capabilities which generally cannot be reliably supported by “best effort” mobile connectivity, providing a foundation for more immersive and differentiating features.
• Point of sales/payments: Provides a stable connection for transactions regardless of the environment, giving retailers more options for places to do business.

Registration

A prerequisite to using Quality on Demand is the registration of your application with Vonage and its mobile operator partners. Vonage’s Network Registry automates the registration process through a common dashboard interface and sends the information to the operators for approval. Vonage’s Customer Dashboard portal is the single source for registration across all participating operators.

See the Network Registry documentation for more detailed information.

If your registration has not been accepted by Vonage or any operators, for example, the Network API Registration status is ‘Pending’ or “Rejected’, you are not authorized to use or send any Network API requests.

Scopes

In the QoD API, a scope is only required during the Network Registry process to declare the purpose for which you'll be using the API. See the Scopes guide for a full list of what is available.

Playground

Currently, the QoD API can only be used in the Playground with a Virtual Operator, which provides predefined and deterministic API responses based on the parameters of the API request. This allows for the discovery, development and testing of Network APIs in scenarios where access to a live operator is unavailable.

See the Playground guide for more information on how to set up your account, and the Virtual Operator guide for more information on the preconfigured requests and responses.

Authentication

Authentication with the Quality on Demand API is done via JWTs. These can be generated via the Vonage Server SDKs, or through the online tool. For more information on authentication using JWTs, see the Authentication guide.

How does the QoD API work?

At a high level:

Profiles

When making a QoD request you will choose a QoD profile, which adjusts different network characteristics to provide a certain level of service. To find out more, read the Profiles guide.