Perfect Wi-Fi Metrics, Broken Calls: The QoS–QoE Gap Explained
"Teams call kept breaking, but the Wi-Fi report said everything was fine… How?”
Sound familiar? This is a classic case where QoS (Quality of Service) says 
, but QoE (Quality of Experience) says 
.
What happened?
The Wi-Fi dashboard showed low latency, no packet loss, high throughput.
But the user’s video was pixelated, audio kept dropping, and reconnects happened.
Why? Because network KPIs didn’t capture retransmissions, app adaptation issues, and airtime congestion that directly impacted the user’s experience.
This is the gap between Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE).
QoS = network-centric metrics (latency, jitter, throughput, error rate).
QoE = user-centric perception (Was the Zoom call smooth? Did the YouTube video buffer? Did Teams reconnect?).
QoS vs QoE — What’s the difference?
QoS = Network-centric metrics
Latency, jitter, packet loss, throughput, signal strength.
Tells us if the pipes are healthy.
QoE = User-centric perception
Call clarity, streaming smoothness, login success, app response.
Tells us if the experience is actually good.
The Conclusion: Which one matters more?
Both are important, but QoE is what users feel.
You can have perfect QoS and still deliver a poor experience.
That’s why modern Wi-Fi operations need to correlate QoS with QoE.
Key QoE Parameters to Track in Wi-Fi
Application response time (page loads, login flows, captive portal).
Voice/Video MOS scores (clarity of calls, jitter buffer health).
Session continuity (stable roaming, no random disconnects).
Streaming smoothness (buffering, adaptive bitrate).
Authentication & DNS success rate (can users actually get online?).
Takeaway:
QoS is the foundation, but QoE is the truth.
At the end of the day, users don’t say “my jitter is 40ms” — they say “my call dropped.”
Over to you:
Have you ever faced a case where all KPIs were green, but users were still unhappy? How did you diagnose it?
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