PESQ is an objective and recognized industry-standard audio quality measure.
PESQ stands for the Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality. Spearline uses this in its global in-country number testing. This objective and recognized industry-standard audio quality measure takes into consideration characteristics such as:
- Audio Sharpness
- Call Volume
- Background Noise
- Variable Latency or Lag in Audio
- Clipping
- Audio Interference
How to tell what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ audio sound like
The test compares an audio output (at the phone line’s ‘listener’ end) to the original voice file (played on the ‘talker’ side) to create a fully unbiased and objective indicator of the audio being heard. This is more accurate than other methods of audio quality measurement, which often rely on audio quality predictions based on network performance. PESQ returns a score from -1 to 4.5, with higher scores indicating better quality.
PESQ scoring band
- 1.00 – 1.99 No meaning understood with any feasible effort
- 2.00 – 2.39 Considerable effort required
- 2.40 – 2.79 Moderate effort required
- 2.80 – 3.29 Attention necessary; a small amount of effort required
- 3.30 – 3.79 Attention necessary; no appreciable effort required
- 3.80 – 4.50 Complete relaxation possible; no effort required
It’s worth remembering, of course, that good audio quality can vary from one country to the next. What one might expect in Germany would be unachievable in Brazil.
If you’re proactively measuring the audio quality you’re achieving, and checking that against a country-by-country benchmark, you can make informed decisions about which telecom providers you use and how you route your calls.