EliG wrote:1. Should I enable QoS in Tomato right away? My understanding is, it's only required to solve the choppy voice issues. I'm thinking I can keep QoS disabled for now.
I can make people I talk to complain that my voice is choppy just by using a web browser while on a phone call. However, my upstream and downstream bandwidth is rather low. If you have a lot of bandwidth, perhaps you're not saturating it. You can always wait and see if anyone complains about audio quality. If audio quality is not
perfect, then you can set up QoS. Basically, your VoIP should perform just like a landline.
Here is how I configured mine:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27576528-bridonca wrote:For the most part, QOS is a waste of time and effort. If the ISP is shaping the traffic, there is nothing QOS can do to help.
I have yet to see any evidence suggesting any Canadian ISP manipulates VoIP traffic. Shaping torrents, yes - but they have an argument for that (albeit a weak one). If they shaped VoIP, I suspect it would be grounds for an anti-competitive lawsuit. So far, everyone I've seen complain their ISP is shaping VoIP had their audio quality problems magically disappear after I helped them to set up QoS.
As you can imagine, I frequently see people saturating their internet connection and leaving no room for VoIP. In this case, I think QoS is definitely not a waste of time and effort. Your options are 1) don't use your internet when you're on the phone (not practical for most people), 2) spend more money on faster internet that you won't saturate much (nice if you can afford it), 3) live with crap audio quality (no one wants that), or 4) use QoS.