Other side cannot hear well (broken up)

[giladros]

We've been experiencing weird issues: often times the other side cannot hear us well, they complain of a severely broken up line, to the point where we cannot have a conversation. I'm able to hear them fine. Just called a friend who is on freephoneline.ca as well, and the quality was excellent. Tried switching to a different phone and phone cables, also tried switching to a different port on the router, changing the ethernet cable - none of these helped. I doubt it's the connection, since I had two consecutive calls, one was excellent (to freephoneline.ca customer) and the other was bad. Maybe the settings need to be adjusted. Any ideas what to do?

We're using a Grandstream 701 connected to a Netgear WNR2000 Router, which is connected to a Motorola SB5100 cable modem. Our internet service is through TekSavvy.

[Mango3]

Your problem is caused by some other device on your network using too much bandwidth. You can solve the problem by setting up QoS on your router. You'll need to configure it with the maximum upload speed of your internet connection, less 20%.

I've never done this with your router, but it's in the user's manual http://www.lmi.net/wp-content/uploads/WNR2000.pdf on page 5-18. After configuring the speed of your internet connection less 20%, you can try to follow the directions under "QoS for a MAC Address" to give traffic from your ATA high priority.

[bridonca]

Do you do a lot of torrenting? If you do, you can minimize the negative effects torrenting has on VOIP

Limit your connections to 50, and your upload slots to 2. Not only will that improve your VOIP, but there is a decent chance your torrenting speed will improve also.

[giladros]

Thanks! Setting up QoS could help. I was busy setting up a new router: Asus RT-N12, and haven't set up the QoS yet. However, here's the thing - I just tried the phone, to see if the router was the source of the problem. The call was really broken on the other side. I then tried a different phone (on the same line) - same thing. I then tried Google Talk - still bad. Since we're not downloading/uploading anything via Torrent or otherwise at the moment, that makes me think that it might just be poor internet connection speed. I immediately did a speed test and the download speed was 8Mbps - we're on a 7.5Mbps plan via cable with Teksavvy. I just did another one and it was 4 Mbps. So that seems fine, for download. However, for upload the stated maximum is 0.512Mbps and I'm getting 0.15Mbps. Since in all the broken up calls I was able to hear find but the other person got a very broken up signal, it seems that this could very well be the cause, right? So then I go and complain to my ISP? Is there another way to boost my upload speed or to transmit a more compressed signal, etc?

[giladros]

Well, I set up the QoS, and made some calls and looks like the quality is excellent. Hopefully that solved the problem. I checked the upload speed and it was around 0.2Mbps - I read up on this and although that's not amazing, it sounds like that should be easily sufficient for VOIP. Thanks for your help!

[Mango3]

That's good to hear. 0.2Mbps is indeed low, and you may want to talk with your ISP as a matter of course. If you had faster speeds, there would be more room for general internet use, while a VoIP call was in progress.

[bridonca]

As said, your upload seems low. Your Asus RT-N12 router seems decent enough, though the latest firmware update would not hurt. I would talk to the ISP and ask why the upload is so bad, might be a problem in the wiring or even the router.

I have better speed test specifically for VOIP quality. http://myspeed.visualware.com/test.php? ... cemeup.com

[michaellanfield]

I have same problem sometimes, but people can hear me fine when I talk through Skype.