ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Mean opinion score

Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is kind of like getting a grade for how good something sounds on the phone. Imagine you're playing a game where you have to listen to different sounds, like a person talking or music playing, and then you have to give it a grade from 1 to 5 depending on how much you like it or how clear it sounds.

The people who make the phone or internet systems want to know how good everything sounds to you, so they ask a bunch of people to play this game and give them a grade from 1 to 5. When they get all the grades from all the people, they add them up and then divide the total by the number of people who played the game. This gives them the Mean Opinion Score or MOS, which is like the average grade from everyone who played the game.

The MOS helps phone and internet companies figure out how good their systems are and if they need to make any changes, like making the sound clearer or improving the connection. So, next time you're on the phone or listening to music on the internet, just remember that your opinion matters, and it helps make things better for everyone!