Fongo Community Forums

I've heard that G711u gives better sound quality, but I noticed that all the setup instructions say to put G729a as the preferred codec?

If I put G711u as the preferred codec, will my outgoing calls use G711u or will it just end up using G729a because G711u might not be supported by FPL?

I use a 2Wire 2701HGV-E which is an all in one gateway (modem/router/ata). It has few settings and as for the voice codecs all I get is a choice of High, Low and Fax (check boxes). I suppose that High refers to G711 and Low to G729.

Anyway, mine is set to High and works flawlessly. I guess you should just try.

You can certainly use g711u!

If you have a good internet connection, G.711u (also known as ulaw) is preferred, and almost every SIP VOIP device supports it. However, a lot of internet connections are just not that good, and in that case, a more fault tolerance and smaller bandwidth codec like G.729a will likely give you better results.

I have the same problem over a 3G connection. I have set up G729 as prefered codec and I am able to place calls, but I have not been able to receive calls when G729 is set as prefered codec, all the incoming calls come in with G711.
The support team insist that there is nothing wrong on their side.
I don’t know what else to do.

Steve, can you shed some light, please?

Fyi: Steve is on vacation for a bit-- I am sure Mike and Neil, as well as Dom & Harris will be pinch-hitting .... as it is now the weekend, I would not be expecting a timely reply, as I believe most of the Fongo Forum Staff are M-F employees ....

One of the first things that happens when a phone call starts is that the two ends negotiate a common audio codec to be used for the call. If there is no common codec then the call will fail or have seriously messed up sound or none at all. Probably the most used codec for voip calls is G711u (Ulaw) because the patents have expired and it is free for all to use and gives high voice quality but it does require fairly high bandwidth.
The G729 codec uses lower bandwidth and give good voice quality and some voip services prefer it because of the lower bandwith (more calls down the wire) but G729 is still under patents and cost money to license. However, most common ATA devices do provided the G729 codec as part of the initial cost.
There are some some much lower bandwith codecs available that still offer voice quality that is acceptable for phone calls. One open source example is Speex which can give acceptable calls even over dialup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speex or extended record time on voice recorders.
There is a summary of codecs here http://www.en.voipforo.com/codec/codecs.php.

Thanks for the information and links regarding codecs dibsmft! I am sure it will prove informative and somewhat helpful! Got me reading a little more into it ... and I have no options, as I am too cheap to by the config and an ATA, so it is the software client for me .... lol

Thank you guys
How would I solve the problem of receiving calls over 3G? The quality is really bad with G711u but the current setup does not allow us to receive calls using G729? It works great with my other VOIP providers, but it does not work for incoming calls with Fongo. I have tried Bell and Fido network, but the quality over 3G is really bad when the incoming call uses G711u.

aferreira1980 wrote:Thank you guys
How would I solve the problem of receiving calls over 3G? The quality is really bad with G711u but the current setup does not allow us to receive calls using G729? It works great with my other VOIP providers, but it does not work for incoming calls with Fongo. I have tried Bell and Fido network, but the quality over 3G is really bad when the incoming call uses G711u.

Fongo over 3G is not much better at G.729a either. Some people say they can get good VOIP over 3G, but either they are really tolerant to crap, or they are on a nice cell site.

As for other carriers doing good with 3G, Skype is proprietary, and uses every nasty trick in the book to get a call through even the nastiest network, with mixed results. Fongo, on the other hand, uses industry standard SIP VOIP, which allows it to use various devices, but the downside is that it is at the mercy of any crooked telco that wants to protect their profit margin.

You could try using the free Dell Voice smartphone app, as this has been designed to work with data over cellular signals. You could then forward your calls from your main Fongo number to your new Dell Voice number and see how it works.

Thank you for your suggestion Neil, but it defeats the whole purpose of buying the configuration file.
I guess the solution isn't really changing settings or implementing workarounds on our side, but yours. If you guys are so hesitant about enabling G729 for incoming calls, could you consider enabling the codec GSM for incoming calls?

Alex