Effect of Age on Perceived Quality of Service of IP-based Communication Applications
Sunisa Sathapornvajanasunisa@sit.kmutt.ac.th
Borworn Papasratornborworn@sit.kmutt.ac.th
School of Information Technology, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand
IP-based communication applications are available to most users without any fee. This makes the applications become widely used among users of various age groups. With the same technical quality, different users have different perception on quality of IPbased communication, and users have different perceived quality of service (PQoS) for the same technical quality of service (QoS). This study has the objective of finding the relation between age and PQoS. From the literature review, 5 user characteristics affect perception of quality, i.e. IT knowledge, IT experience, coping with unexpected events, ability to notice, and physical expectancy. The effect of age on PQoS was studied empirically in Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation B, with a sample size of 405. The results revealed that coping with unexpected events has significant influence on Generation Y, whereas IT experience and physical expectancy have an effect on Generation X. Generation B perceives QoS according to IT knowledge and physical expectancy. The results from this study can help IP-based communication service providers to make effective decisions on appropriate quality levels of their services for each age segment of their users. Offering acceptable quality of service to customers will end up with better customer engagement and decrease in the number of customer turn out.
Age dimension
IP-based communication applications
perceived Quality of Service
user perception of Quality of Service