Audio quality in real-time communications over a network

A computerized apparatus, comprising control circuitry that includes a set of processing units coupled to memory, the control circuitry constructed and arranged to:

• generate, during a real-time communication session over a computer network between multiple parties operating respective computing devices, real-time measurements of multiple audio factors of the communication session, each of the audio factors being susceptible to degradation in a way that affects an overall audio quality of the communication session;
• assign a respective MOS (Mean Opinion Score) value to each of the measured audio factors, each MOS value providing a measure of quality of the respective audio factor independent of other audio factors;
• combine the assigned MOS values to produce an overall measure of audio quality;
• and
• direct a software program running on one of the computing devices to render an indication of the overall measure of audio quality, the indication enabling the party operating said one of the computing devices to take remedial action to improve the overall audio quality.

A computer program product including a set of non-transitory, computer-readable media having instructions which, when executed by control circuitry of a computerized apparatus, cause the control circuitry to perform a method for improving audio quality in real-time communications over a computer network, the method comprising:

• generating, during a real-time communication session over the computer network between multiple parties operating respective computing devices, real-time measurements of multiple audio factors of the communication session, each of the audio factors being susceptible to degradation in a way that affects an overall audio quality of the communication session;
• assigning a respective MOS (Mean Opinion Score) value to each of the measured audio factors, each MOS value providing a measure of quality of the respective audio factor independent of other audio factors;
• combining the assigned MOS values to produce an overall measure of audio quality;
• and
• directing a software program running on one of the computing devices to render an indication of the overall measure of audio quality, the indication enabling the party operating said one of the computing devices to take remedial action to improve the overall audio quality.