Sound Cuts Out for Half a Second Randomly

[cp24isgoodnews]

well there goes that shoe...out the window

[magicray]

This is an update to my previous comments on this matter of dropped audio.

I'm currently setup with pbxes.com with freephoneline as one of my trunk lines and my PAP2 as one of my extensions. Everything seems to have been smooth since the start of the test, as Kris stated there might be something going with NAT and RTP proxy. So if anyone is having alot of problems just setup pbxes.com to connect to freephoneline and have your PAP2 connect to pbxes.org proxy.

Also I noticed alot of people complaining about how you've paid the config fee and there is no support/help in regards with problems - you have to understand there isn't ANY company out there doing what freephoneline is doing, so along the way there will be problems. So please try to contribute to the community like the op, instead of just complaining.

BTW I noticed an announcement about an upgrade/replacement of a switch, hopefully this will remedy the problem everyone is having and this thread will be closed.

[laurent]

cp24isgoodnews, my working setup is:

TekSavvy DSL 5M/800k, Thomson SpeedTouch 516 modem, Linksys WRT45GL with Tomato/MLPPP, GrandStream HT502.

[OverDrive]

Sorry Steve, I havn't had any input back as I'm one of the testers. With the holiday season, it has been crazy here, and work had me working long hours. I will get to doing the testing I promised this weekend as I can definately make time.

[mitwtim]

Just wanted to check in and see if this issue was getting close to being resolved. Thanks to the testers who are trying to help FPL figure this out. I have still managed to delay pulling the plug on FPL and going back to Rogers. But, I don't think I'll be able to hold out much longer, my wife is really not happy with this (insert any extra words you think she might use) service. We may be going back to Rogers if this can't be solved in the very near future. I can appreciate this is a very tricky thing to resolve and there are a lot of variables but it has been going on since November 2nd. I see that there are people here who have other VoIP services that are not having any issues, it is only with their FPL service, to a layperson that is a pretty strong indicator it is something on FPL's end. Please keep looking and pushing on for a fast solution.

andya, wish I had been as smart as you delaying the porting of the number. But, when I signed up there hadn't been any complaints about this service and my friends encouraged me to sign up and port all at once in advance of a move. Lucky me, my number ported over just as all the problems started! So, my change away from FPL is now a lot more cumbersome since I need to port my number away from them. I am incredibly frustrated!

November 2nd is when this issue was formally reported in the forum. Please get more people involved in resolving this issue. Satisfied customers are a very valuable form of advertising!

[cp24isgoodnews]

Just wanted to check in and see if this issue was getting close to being resolved. Thanks to the testers who are trying to help FPL figure this out. I have still managed to delay pulling the plug on FPL and going back to Rogers. But, I don't think I'll be able to hold out much longer, my wife is really not happy with this (insert any extra words you think she might use) service. We may be going back to Rogers if this can't be solved in the very near future. I can appreciate this is a very tricky thing to resolve and there are a lot of variables but it has been going on since November 2nd. I see that there are people here who have other VoIP services that are not having any issues, it is only with their FPL service, to a layperson that is a pretty strong indicator it is something on FPL's end. Please keep looking and pushing on for a fast solution.

andya, wish I had been as smart as you delaying the porting of the number. But, when I signed up there hadn't been any complaints about this service and my friends encouraged me to sign up and port all at once in advance of a move. Lucky me, my number ported over just as all the problems started! So, my change away from FPL is now a lot more cumbersome since I need to port my number away from them. I am incredibly frustrated!

November 2nd is when this issue was formally reported in the forum. Please get more people involved in resolving this issue. Satisfied customers are a very valuable form of advertising!

At this point in time I can (unofficially) say that the issue has been apparently solved at this time, what ever work was done last night made a heck of a difference, as I am at this time not seeing any issues and I have been testing all morning to replicate the issue and I can't seem to do it, (Steve smiles) if anyone has any issues I would address that as being a port forwarding issue or a QoS issue not being properly configured and/or a DMZ,

Can anyone else say the same success ?

[mitwtim]

At this point in time I can (unofficially) say that the issue has been apparently solved at this time, what ever work was done last night made a heck of a difference, as I am at this time not seeing any issues and I have been testing all morning to replicate the issue and I can't seem to do it, (Steve smiles) if anyone has any issues I would address that as being a port forwarding issue or a QoS issue not being properly configured and/or a DMZ,

Can anyone else say the same success ?

Steve, can you comment on what was done last night? Do you expect the issue to be resolved at this point?

If nothing signficant has been changed then it could be that cp24isgoodnews' success this morning is a coincidence since at some times the drop-outs are better than others.

Please let us know. If this is fixed that would be great! But, I am hesitant to start jumping just yet.

[Jake]

Well what I can say is the voicemail system is clear as a bell now. Before the voice was breaking up every few words, now it doesn't glitch at all.

Something changed, let hope it is for the better.

[cp24isgoodnews]

At this point in time I can (unofficially) say that the issue has been apparently solved at this time, what ever work was done last night made a heck of a difference, as I am at this time not seeing any issues and I have been testing all morning to replicate the issue and I can't seem to do it, (Steve smiles) if anyone has any issues I would address that as being a port forwarding issue or a QoS issue not being properly configured and/or a DMZ,

Can anyone else say the same success ?

Steve, can you comment on what was done last night? Do you expect the issue to be resolved at this point?

If nothing signficant has been changed then it could be that cp24isgoodnews' success this morning is a coincidence since at some times the drop-outs are better than others.

Please let us know. If this is fixed that would be great! But, I am hesitant to start jumping just yet.

I wouldn't recommend you jumping just yet, but something for sure was done because last night before it was started I was doing some testing and logging data of the cut outs, and it was still present, but in the morning when the work was completed and of course when i woke up I went back to testing and logged no issues what so ever, so what ever was done had for sure made an improvement. From what the post announcement says they swapped some HDD's that where filling up on one of there racks that I guess handles these calls for FPL (again unofficial statement) (Steve please confirm...)

[brentw]

I just did a 10 minute test and no sound cutouts.

Big improvement compared to previously when there were 4 or so cutouts per minute at times.
Hopefully this solved it but will need to test for a few days to confirm nothing comes back.

[cp24isgoodnews]

I think Steve will be sleeping soundly tonight lol! I would like to thank Steve and all his crew who preformed the repairs! (pass my thanks along) (once again-unofficial confirmation of the resolution)

[andyha]

Yeah Baby! I have been making calls all morning and so far have not had one dropoff!! That is SO awesome ! Quality of the calls has been perfect. I guess replacing that switch has done the trick. Nice job Steve, you fixed it man! I'm still a little cautious though....I'm gonna give it until Monday and if all is still good will port my number. So happy right now.

[laurent]

So, dear FPL administrators, what was it? The switch? A squirrel chewing on cables?

[FONGO_kris]

Although squirrels are known to like glue, especially that of the cables interconnecting SIP gateways and other important equipment; I believe the fix is attributed to the massive speed and performance increase that this new switch gave us.

[magicray]

Kris this is great news - lets learn from this and be more proactive in the future.

[laurent]

I'm no networking expert, but I find it a bit unsettling that a vital switch could drop packets without anyone noticing. Isn't there monitoring in place to watch for that?

[Jake]

It's still a bit of a mystery as to why it effected some people and not others. If all calls went though whatever was changed, then surely we would all get the same problems or at least all have a good chance of randomly getting the problem. Maybe we are not all going through the same servers. Who knows, it seems to be fixed for more than one person so it will be a Merry Christmas all round.

Is anyone still getting problems? or are we all good now?

[Taurus]

Seems to be working good at the moment, time will tell.




Thanks for all the hard work people,

Paul

[domptg]

Looks like is working for me too.Thanks for the hard work for Steve , Kris and their crew.Guys you gave everyone nice Christmas Gift.
What about the Ping Plotter test is still showing the big packets loss on few hops , hopefully is not the promise of some other problem to come in the future-
Kris or Steve could you comment on this issue. Thanks

[dan68]

it's working!!! thank you!

[FONGO_kris]

Looks like is working for me too.Thanks for the hard work for Steve , Kris and their crew.Guys you gave everyone nice Christmas Gift.
What about the Ping Plotter test is still showing the big packets loss on few hops , hopefully is not the promise of some other problem to come in the future-
Kris or Steve could you comment on this issue. Thanks

After running some tests myself, including keeping a call to Florida alive for 25 minutes, I've not seen too many drops in audio. The few that I experienced I attributed to the poor fiber network in the village my relatives are in (Still only .640mbps possible ). We're not calling this one resolve until we've gone a solid week without any major issues regarding this, than I can say with confidence we can put a lid on this and call it a day, er... month.

A full error report will be up (hopefully) next week when I have some more details, thank you for all who've provided us with the awesome feedback and reports that you did, give yourselves a pat on the back; definitely the best (and possibly the most patient) customer base ever!

[bedihardeep]

Am still having problem break up of sound i called my buddy @ his cell phone then i called my FPL no from my cell phone

this was around 8:38 Pm December 17,2010

[bedihardeep]

called around 11:30 AM Saturday December 18,2010 still there was break up of sound this time it was for 2 times

[brentw]

bedihardeep,

Are you sure you are experiencing the very short half second sound cutout?
Listen to the audio files in this zip file which was posted in the first message of this thread.
http://forum.freephoneline.ca/download/file.php?id=260

If it is longer than half a second as demonstrated in those audio files then it is a different issue.
This problem was very specific, never more than half a second.

I just did a test again myself and did not experience any issues, and I used to experience issues with every phone call I made.

Confirm that you have QoS setup on your router to give your phone priority.
Or an easy test to do is plug your ATA phone device (your SPA) directly into your rogers modem, so the network cable goes from your modem, into your ATA.
Then unplug the power to both, wait 2 minutes, plug the power into the rogers modem, wait 2 minutes, then plug the power into your ata phone device, wait 2 minutes, then try making a call.
Try calling an 800 number and go through some menus, don't do the test with a cell phone.

[bedihardeep]

bedihardeep,

Are you sure you are experiencing the very short half second sound cutout?
Listen to the audio files in this zip file which was posted in the first message of this thread.
http://forum.freephoneline.ca/download/file.php?id=260

If it is longer than half a second as demonstrated in those audio files then it is a different issue.
This problem was very specific, never more than half a second.

I just did a test again myself and did not experience any issues, and I used to experience issues with every phone call I made.

Confirm that you have QoS setup on your router to give your phone priority.
Or an easy test to do is plug your ATA phone device (your SPA) directly into your rogers modem, so the network cable goes from your modem, into your ATA.
Then unplug the power to both, wait 2 minutes, plug the power into the rogers modem, wait 2 minutes, then plug the power into your ata phone device, wait 2 minutes, then try making a call.
Try calling an 800 number and go through some menus, don't do the test with a cell phone.

yep am having same sound break up as reported in those audio files

its not continuous means not same all the time its on few calls and not always its rare

and that QoS thing if u can tell me in detail how to do that in router that will be great .........


thanks for your opinion ....appreciated