Patent ID: 7707031

Claim:
A method for obtaining large scale subjective signal quality measurements for a mobile radio communications system including a large number of handheld subscriber radio communication units located at various positions in the mobile radio communications system and providing subscribers with wireless communications service, at least a group of the handheld subscriber units storing a copy of a test voice or video signal stream, and a quality management network node storing a copy of the test signal stream communicating with the handheld subscriber units via a radio access network, comprising: each group handheld subscriber unit transmitting over a wireless interface to the quality management network node the test signal stream; each group handheld subscriber unit receiving over the wireless interface the test signal stream sent by the quality management network node and returning the received test signal stream back to the quality management network node, and the quality management network node determining an uplink subjective signal quality for each group handheld subscriber unit based on a comparison of the stored test signal stream and the received test signal stream from the group handheld subscriber unit, the quality management network node determining a downlink subjective signal quality to each group handheld radio unit based on the stored test signal stream and the returned test signal stream received from the handheld subscriber unit.