Choppy Audio quality

[dougsinc]

I've heard from other people that the Dell Voice application gives very good quality. But any calls I make are choppy at best, unintelligible at worst, so I assume something's wrong with my configuration.
I am on Windows 7, with a Rogers cable connection through a wifi router.
When I run the "Test connection", it takes a good few minutes and then I get "Results: Call service is OK", "Data transfer: Unable to send/receive sound data! Port 13000 should be available", "Possible reasons: NONE".

I tried forwarding port 13000 (both UDP and TCPIP) on my router to my PC. No difference in quality. Surprisingly, also no difference on the connection test. It's like it doesn't recognize at all that the port is forwarded.
I tried shutting down my firewall and security. No apparent effect.
I tried changing the port (specifically, to 8000) and forwarding that port to my PC. No effect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[dom]

What is your internet up and downstream speed? If you run a ping test, are there any lost packets?

[dougsinc]

What is your internet up and downstream speed? If you run a ping test, are there any lost packets?

Downstream 30Mbps, upstream 1Mbps. Confirmed by speedtest.net.

Pingtest.net shows 0% packet loss.

[TheHardy]

Per DOM's post, jitter, ping and packet loss rates are critical to VOIP quality. www.speedtest.net www.pingtest.net ... or anything else along those lines will give you some numbers ...

Also: the softphone app is VERY dependent on what else your computer is doing --- stop any streaming torrents, youtube, etc and leave ONLY the softphone as the only thing pulling on the internet (except maybe a browser window NOT streaming something like Netflix!) and see where that leaves you! Some apps like MS-office may also foul about with quality, as they sometimes HOG CPU time ....

[dougsinc]

The same audio issue appears even when the computer is doing nothing else whatsoever. There are no other processes using significant CPU or bandwidth.

I have to believe this issue is somehow related to the "Unable to send/receive sound data" error on the connection test, no? Why does opening port 13000 not make that error go away?

[bridonca]

If audio is going through, I do not believe you have a port issue. I believe you have a jitter issue, where either your router or your ISP is not putting out a clean, steady, stream of data.

The tests TheHardy recommended are OK for bandwidth testing, but incomplete when it comes to VOIP testing. Here is a much better one. http://myspeed.visualware.com/servers/n ... erate.com/ You can test for jitter, which usually is a cause of choppy audio.

Use that test on the g.711u, of which your softphone supports, and also test the g.729a codec, of which the paid version also supports, to see if that is better.

[dougsinc]

A good thought, but here's the result of the test:
"Your connection's jitter was measured as 0.7ms, which indicates that it can produce a constant flow of data. Voice over IP conversations should be of good quality."
Packet loss was measured again at 0%.

Exact same result for both codecs.

Help! Somebody left me a voice mail on Dell Voice yesterday and I had to play it back 3 times to hear all of it. It's that choppy.

[bridonca]

I digging at the bottom of the barrel now. See what happens when you uninstall the application and then re install it. you might have to do the same with JAVA. I am not confident this will work, but I do not have anything else to offer either.

[FONGO_neil]

The same audio issue appears even when the computer is doing nothing else whatsoever. There are no other processes using significant CPU or bandwidth.

I have to believe this issue is somehow related to the "Unable to send/receive sound data" error on the connection test, no? Why does opening port 13000 not make that error go away?

Have you tried allowing the desktop app in windows firewall or any other third party firewall running on your computer?

[dougsinc]

Yes, the application is allowed in Windows firewall. And just to be sure, I completely disabled both the firewall and Security Essentials to see if it would make a difference. It didn't.

I have tried re-installing the Dell Voice application. No effect.

Is there another softphone application that would work with my Dell Voice account somehow? Then I could test if it's the application itself, or my connection.

[TheHardy]

Sadly, without purchasing the UNLOCK key, not so much ....

What you can do, is use someone else's computer at another location, download and fire up the softphone app using YOUR login information and go from there ...

If you want me to, PM me your username (login) and a password [Yes Mike/Steve, I know, I know!) and I will be more than happy to test YOUR account from MY connection here ... I can let you know the results -- maybe even PHONE you on a another # if you have one .... and then you can change your password to something else ...

You don't have to trust me ... as long as you can get to someone else's computer and install and test ... but I am up til late, have a working DV and FPL install of softphone here and am more than willing to help troubleshoot this for you if you wish ....

[FONGO_mike]

Sadly, without purchasing the UNLOCK key, not so much ....

What you can do, is use someone else's computer at another location, download and fire up the softphone app using YOUR login information and go from there ...

If you want me to, PM me your username (login) and a password [Yes Mike/Steve, I know, I know!) and I will be more than happy to test YOUR account from MY connection here ... I can let you know the results -- maybe even PHONE you on a another # if you have one .... and then you can change your password to something else ...

You don't have to trust me ... as long as you can get to someone else's computer and install and test ... but I am up til late, have a working DV and FPL install of softphone here and am more than willing to help troubleshoot this for you if you wish ....

Although i would like to thank Hardy for his offer to help, please feel free to send me a PM with just the phone number and a brief description of the issue (the description as a reminder as we do receive a number of messages on any given day) and we can test it out for you in our office. (We do not require your username or password)

[TheHardy]

(as above) --- I am not a Fongo employee (see also Mike's disclaimer) ... there are lots of ways to test out your "account" to see if it is that or other things. Most likely it will be jitter/latency on your given connection. As Mike says though, they can check your ACCOUNT itself, but the liklihood of there being an account level glitch that is causing something is slim to none for this issue.

Is your computer a desktop or laptop? If it is somewhat portable, then you can test your computer by moving it to someone else's internet connection; there may well be a software conflict at play too where things may be competing for CPU access, rather than an internet connection problem. Unfortunately, there are all kinds of evil things that can nerf a VOIP connection.

[FONGO_mike]

Once we have tested it here, if i confirm there is no issue with the account, as the Hardy said, we can provide you with a bit of a list of trouble shooting steps you can try. That being said, with what i have seen from our posters here on the forums, i am always 99.99% sure that any issue can be resolved due entirely to the combined knowledge base of everyone who posts on this site.

[dougsinc]

Sent you a PM, Mike.

Thanks, Hardy. I'll keep you in mind if all else fails.

[TheHardy]

Sent you a PM, Mike.

Thanks, Hardy. I'll keep you in mind if all else fails.

While it might be an "internal account misconfiguration", that is somewhat unlikely, unless you got struck by lightening -- but stranger things have happened.

If ya do need a troubleshoot from me, we can pick a time, I will come online here, you can PM me, change whatever you need, gimme 5 mins to break things, then change back PW whatever and I can post you my results (or call ya!) realtime and let you know what I manage to break/fix/etc.


Mike may have some other insight as to what to check on a generic basis ...

[dougsinc]

I haven't heard back from Mike yet, but I've been doing some experimenting.

I suspected that it might be my Rogers router, so I bridged it and went to a different one. No effect.

Then I wondered if the problem was unique to Dell Voice or if it was all VOIP. I tried a Skype conversation, and it was painful. Audio would cut out for several seconds at a time.

So I wondered if it was Rogers throttling my VOIP traffic. I tried Skype on an ipod touch. It worked quite well. No audio dropouts.

Then I installed Dell Voice on the same ipod and tried it. Also worked quite well.

Dialled the exact same number from Dell Voice on my PC. Choppy and awful.

Conclusion: there is strong evidence that it's something to do with my PC configuration.

[TheHardy]

Wow -- with determination and dedication like that, you coulda been a computer tech back in the 90's! LOL Seriously tho, good on you for doing the leg work. So, I wonder what the issue is with your PC config....

Is there anything else that is taking control of your audio? Something causing spikes in your bandwidth? Pop up the TaskManager and see if there are weird things running, processes that should not be .... that kind of thing.

It is hard to diagnose a PC issue, as there are UMPTEEN things it could be ... latest WIN updates? Defragged? Removed (correctly) unnecessary proggies? Useless junk running in STARTUP? If there is elements of SKYPE or other VOIP-ish apps that were once installed, they may be loading some part of themselves and then interfering later on ... I am not sure of all of the interactions that could be involved, but this may be an avenue worth going down...

[Bloodsong]

*throws a hat into the ring*
I'd be happy to do a remote support session with you and see if we can settle this for you.
A few things I can try.

As Hardy says, difficult to diagnose PCs due to the multitude of possibilities, thus, I offer the support option. I generally use TeamViewer although I am setup on Crossloop (commercial platform) as NetBIOS.