Sound Cuts Out for Half a Second Randomly

[FONGO_steve]

You know, perhaps you guys at FPL would enjoy a full wireshark capture of a session of a few minutes? I don't have much time on hand but if it's what it takes to get this issue moving, I'll go get my toolbox.

If you'd have a spare second to capture something for me, that would be wonderful! I'll PM you my email address.

Thanks for sharing your hardware setups/ISPs too everyone - I've got a co-worker who has an identical setup to one of you and will be doing some testing from home tonight for this. The issue does seem to be affected by ISP's because using our own freephoneline DSL no matter how many different hardware setups we throw at it, we can never duplicate this.

[bananax]

I get the same issue.

I'm on Bell Fibe25
I have the Linksys model VOIP box, I Can get the exact model when I get home.
I run through a DD-WRT Linksys 320n
I get that cut out, more often then every 10minutes, and I believe it is when call waiting is being used.

I'll get the model / firmware and update the post later on today.

[Taurus]

I have the same issue here in east Hamilton, randomly cutting in and out.

Bell Fibe 12 internet
2 wire gateway (combined router and modem) also wireless (Bells setup)
Grand Stream Handy Tone-286 ATA (Free Phone Line setup)
PPPoE


Paul (newby)

[leoasil]

I have the exact same issue here in Mississauga, Ontario on CIA.

This problem is only with freephoneline. I am a little bit upset.

I know it's a problem with freephoneline because I don't get the problem making voice calls over the internet with anything else.

I was prior with vbuzzer, but changed/ported over to freephoneline (losing my yearly payment to vbuzzer, but that's not the fault of freephoneline, but vbuzzer themselves). I thought it was worth it, because vbuzzer was starting to seem shady, and freephoneline servers are locally in Canada. Now I'm starting to regret it.

My ISP is connected to FreePhoneLine via TorIX (Toronto Internet Exchange). A traceroute seems to indicate this. I thought this was a good thing, as freephoneline.ca has 22ms vs vbuzzer's 100ms, which was partly which I switched, but I'd take 100ms with no packet loss any day.

However, now with almost every phone call, I get packet loss. Both vbuzzer and freephoneline used SIP. No difference there.

Considering I'm not the only one experiencing this problem, it seems to me it's a freephoneline connection or server issue.

Checking the status of my adapter during a call, I see: "Call 1 Packets Lost: 163"

I'm thinking it could be a TorIX connection related issue. (http://www.torix.net/)

[leoasil]

Anyone else who is experiencing this issue, could you run in a command prompt "tracert voip.freephoneline.ca" and paste your results here?

[brentw]

Hi leoasil

Back on page 1 and 2 of this thread there are some pics of visual tracerts of the path taken.
I have had this issue on a connection I used to test that goes through torontointernetxchange.net (torix) and also cogentco.com in the states.

It unfortuantely (or maybe fortunately) does not appear to be related to torix.

http://forum.freephoneline.ca/viewtopic ... =25#p10963

http://forum.freephoneline.ca/viewtopic ... 887#p10711

[brentw]

And yes I get some packet loss everytime the sound cuts out.
I constantly refreshed the status page on my ata during a test call to voicemail just now and everytime there was a sound cutout Packets Lost would jump by 5 or 20.

Having tested 4 different connections I don't see how all 4 of those could be having packet loss on their end though, especially that 10 meg fibre connection...

Last Registration At: 11/30/2010 21:50:01
Next Registration In: 36 s
Message Waiting: No
Call Back Active: No
Last Called Number: *98
Last Caller Number:
Mapped SIP Port: 5060
Call 1 State: Connected
Call 1 Tone: None
Call 1 Encoder: G711u
Call 1 Decoder: G711u
Call 1 FAX: No
Call 1 Type: Outbound
Call 1 Remote Hold: No
Call 1 Callback: No
Call 1 Peer Name:
Call 1 Peer Phone: *98
Call 1 Duration: 00:04:00
Call 1 Packets Sent: 12008
Call 1 Packets Recv: 10526
Call 1 Bytes Sent: 1921280
Call 1 Bytes Recv: 1684160
Call 1 Decode Latency: 190 ms
Call 1 Jitter: 4 ms
Call 1 Round Trip Delay: Not Available
Call 1 Packets Lost: 81
Call 1 Packet Error: 0
Call 1 Mapped RTP Port: 16444 >> 0
Call 1 Media Loopback:

[Taurus]

Hope I did this right, here is the result of the test I ran.

voip.freephoneline.ca.png

Paul

[Jake]

I downloaded this pingplotter that others are using and ran a few tests. The first was done with the freeware program, then I tested the pro version as I saw other graphs were different to mine.

I am on FPL DSL, so I don't have that many hops. The only proplem I am having now is really with the FPL voicemail breaking up when I try to listen to it. My wife says that normal calls are OK, or that she has not noticed anything.

Notice with both graphs how I do get a packet loss on the same server. If this was a voice call, wouldn't it mean part of the conversation would be dropped also?

freeware.png

pro.png

[Joe B]

I've had the sound cut out randomly since I purchased a second phone #. About a week ago I decided every time I made a call I would plug the ATA into the Cable modem and I don't get the trouble at all. I have tried to plug into the router with nothing else and the problem returns. I will post my info later this morning.

[Joe B]

ATA Model:Linksys PAP2T
ATA Firmware: 3.1.15(LS)
Router Model:Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS
Router Firmware: DD-WRT v24-sp2 (09/08/09) mega
ISP: Cogeco
ISP Modem:RCA DCM305
Router WAN port setup (DHCP or PPPoE) DHCP

[cp24isgoodnews]

ATA Model: Linksys PAP2
ATA Firmware: 3.1.15(LS)
Router Model: WRT54GS (Properly Port Forwarded and QoS for Voip enabled)
Router Firmware: Firmware Version: v4.71.1, Hyperwrt 2.1b1 + Thibor15b3
ISP: Rogers
ISP Modem: Linksys Cable Modem BEFCMU10 ver. 4
Router WAN port setup (DHCP or PPPoE) : DHCP

I have been playing around with QoS settings and the best I have gotten so far is the caller tells me that it cuts out around every 1min to 30 seconds, I still haven't narrowed it down as well, I on the other hand listening to the call don't hear any issues (too early to tell though haven't used it quite enough) hopefully we can

[charlau]

Kind of happy to know I'm not the only one.... One thing I can say is that I've been some time in Switzerland (came back this summer) and it never happened over there! But here yes, and annoying to the point of being a strong user of the "always" followme setting... here's my config:

• ATA Model: Linksys PAP2T
  ATA Firmware: 5.1.6(LS)
  Router Model: D-Link DI-624 or D-Link WBR-2310
  Router Firmware: 2.76
  ISP: radioactif.com (DSL on a "dead" line)
  ISP Modem: Thompson SpeedTouch ST-516 v6 (set to forward directly the external IP to my router)
  Router WAN port setup (DHCP or PPPoE): DHCP

I'm in the Montreal area.

[cp24isgoodnews]

Just thought i might add my packet loss when doing a test call to pizza pizza 416 967 1111 and i repeatably made the automated voice repeat by pressing ( * ) after it finished speaking. Anyways here is the log note for packet loss (and of course when the packet loss occurred I noticed that packet loss would jump by intervals of 10 if that's any help and that's when you would notice the drop out over the phone

Call 1 Tone: None
Call 1 Encoder: G729a
Call 1 Decoder: G729a
Call 1 FAX: No
Call 1 Type: Outbound
Call 1 Remote Hold: No
Call 1 Callback: No
Call 1 Peer Name:
Call 1 Peer Phone: 4169671111
Call 1 Duration: 00:02:35
Call 1 Packets Sent: 7759
Call 1 Packets Recv: 7723
Call 1 Bytes Sent: 1241440
Call 1 Bytes Recv: 1235840
Call 1 Decode Latency: 60 ms
Call 1 Jitter: 3 ms
Call 1 Round Trip Delay:
Call 1 Packets Lost: 35
Call 1 Packet Error: 0
Call 1 Mapped RTP Port:

[FONGO_steve]

Just thought i might add my packet loss when doing a test call to pizza pizza 416 967 1111 and i repeatably made the automated voice repeat by pressing ( * ) after it finished speaking. Anyways here is the log note for packet loss (and of course when the packet loss occurred I noticed that packet loss would jump by intervals of 10 if that's any help and that's when you would notice the drop out over the phone

Call 1 Tone: None
Call 1 Encoder: G729a
Call 1 Decoder: G729a
Call 1 FAX: No
Call 1 Type: Outbound
Call 1 Remote Hold: No
Call 1 Callback: No
Call 1 Peer Name:
Call 1 Peer Phone: 4169671111
Call 1 Duration: 00:02:35
Call 1 Packets Sent: 7759
Call 1 Packets Recv: 7723
Call 1 Bytes Sent: 1241440
Call 1 Bytes Recv: 1235840
Call 1 Decode Latency: 60 ms
Call 1 Jitter: 3 ms
Call 1 Round Trip Delay:
Call 1 Packets Lost: 35
Call 1 Packet Error: 0
Call 1 Mapped RTP Port:

By any chance do you have access to a utility like PingPlotter to see which hop the packet loss is occurring on? This seems to be a common variable I'm finding between those of you with the problem. Since everyone's internet takes different routes, that's also likely why not every single user is affected by this either. I'm just waiting on some extra eyes here to check this out further for me.

[cp24isgoodnews]

Just thought i might add my packet loss when doing a test call to pizza pizza 416 967 1111 and i repeatably made the automated voice repeat by pressing ( * ) after it finished speaking. Anyways here is the log note for packet loss (and of course when the packet loss occurred I noticed that packet loss would jump by intervals of 10 if that's any help and that's when you would notice the drop out over the phone

Call 1 Tone: None
Call 1 Encoder: G729a
Call 1 Decoder: G729a
Call 1 FAX: No
Call 1 Type: Outbound
Call 1 Remote Hold: No
Call 1 Callback: No
Call 1 Peer Name:
Call 1 Peer Phone: 4169671111
Call 1 Duration: 00:02:35
Call 1 Packets Sent: 7759
Call 1 Packets Recv: 7723
Call 1 Bytes Sent: 1241440
Call 1 Bytes Recv: 1235840
Call 1 Decode Latency: 60 ms
Call 1 Jitter: 3 ms
Call 1 Round Trip Delay:
Call 1 Packets Lost: 35
Call 1 Packet Error: 0
Call 1 Mapped RTP Port:

By any chance do you have access to a utility like PingPlotter to see which hop the packet loss is occurring on? This seems to be a common variable I'm finding between those of you with the problem. Since everyone's internet takes different routes, that's also likely why not every single user is affected by this either. I'm just waiting on some extra eyes here to check this out further for me.

Steve I sent you a PM under the TAG: RE:CP24isgoodnews:Pingplotter

[cp24isgoodnews]

at this point im ready throw my cable modem at the wall lol, last resort might be to swap cable modems and see if it solves it because I went about 3 blocks down the street from where I live and brought my PAP2 and it seemed to have no cut-outs during the call although packet loss was seen in the PAP2 log screen although no noticeable issues or cut outs where present, im still fumbled by the issue

[FONGO_steve]

at this point im ready throw my cable modem at the wall lol, last resort might be to swap cable modems and see if it solves it because I went about 3 blocks down the street from where I live and brought my PAP2 and it seemed to have no cut-outs during the call although packet loss was seen in the PAP2 log screen although no noticeable issues or cut outs where present, im still fumbled by the issue

Did they have the same ISP as you down the street, or different?

I got your PM - will drop you a line in the morning as I've got a few things to finish up in the next short while before I leave the office today.

[brentw]

cp24isgoodnews,

I have had this same issue on 4 different connections.
Rogers at home in Markham.
Cogeco cable in Niagara Falls.
Bell DSL in Toronto.
A 10 meg business fibre line in Toronto.

All behaved the same with random cutouts.
I was really thinking the 10 meg fibre line would have worked, especially since they run 20 voip lines on it during the day without problem....
See this post from earlier for details.
http://forum.freephoneline.ca/viewtopic ... =25#p10963
Connections don't get too much better than the results from that fibre line and the random half second sound cut out still happened.
I tested both a PAP2T and Grandstream HT502, both had the same result.

I don't think the problem is your cable modem.

[brentw]

An update.
This is still happening.
I was using my phone during the day today and it seemed to be fine.
I used it again 30 minutes later and it was cutting every minute or so and at some points a couple times per minute.
The other end must have asked me to repeat myself close to 20 times.

There is no pattern that is followed, it's worse sometimes than others.
My internet connection was idle other than the phone call, no change between the two calls...

[beverly]

I think I found the problem.. Everytime you hear a cut out in audio, FPL is making/getting a transaction ($) via voucher/payment.

Does anyone have $ in their Account balance (voucher) having this problem. if not could we test this?

Also this recent major server upgrade "drop calls"
If it was used. Its a bad deal.

[OverDrive]

I think I found the problem.. Everytime you hear a cut out in audio, FPL is making/getting a transaction ($) via voucher/payment.

Does anyone have $ in their Account balance (voucher) having this problem. if not could we test this?

Also this recent major server upgrade "drop calls"
If it was used. Its a bad deal.

But what if you haven't purchased vouchers and don't have any money in your account, like me. I'm still having this problem, so it doesn't make sense.

[FONGO_steve]

This is not related to purchases being made...
Both are entirely separate systems.

[Andyt]

Yesterday I installed PingPlotter utility and ran the test to viop.freephoneline.ca. There is a packet loss up to 60% on Hop 7 which is gw-295ca.torontointernetexchange.net every 1-1.5 minutes (red bars on the second from the bottom graph)

voip.freephoneline.ca.png

[FONGO_steve]

Yesterday I installed PingPlotter utility and ran the test to viop.freephoneline.ca. There is a packet loss up to 60% on Hop 7 which is gw-295ca.torontointernetexchange.net every 1-1.5 minutes (red bars on the second from the bottom graph)

Thanks for sharing - it's appearing that packet loss on the network routing between many ISPs and us is definitely what's causing this. I am having our network admin review this so we can hopefully find a speedy solution.

If anyone else wants to share pingplotter results, more information can only help