FPL softphone - audio dropout & touchtones

[TheHardy]

Using the default FPL softphone. I have read thru the forums and posts, and most of them seem to be directed towards ATA issues. My firewall has the relevant ports correctly dealt with, router is not involved.

I do not know if I can change a codec somewhere, or how I would go about it. I cannot find any settings to really change, unless there is something behind the scenes that I am missing.

Audio Dropout - usually right after a connection, and then after the other party says something. Especially bad if I am calling into my local recorded weather info line - a lot of the audio is cut off at the start of the message, and then again after I make a touch-tone selection for another menu.

Is this common? FWIW, in case someone wants to test it, it is the Environment Canada Weather Line for Vancouver & area, 604-664-9010.

Touch tones not working - well, again, mainly with the above number, the touchtones that I send don't always register, or sometimes register as double-presses. I also have this issue with many other systems that use touchtones, such as dialing extensions, or checking voicemail (both FPL and other).

Anyone with any experience on this, or that can offer some insight? I mean, other than "buy the config, use an ATA".

Is this just a limitation of the default FPL softphone, or is it something else?

Thanks in advance!

[Jake]

Usually the softphone is pretty solid.

What type of internet connection are you using?

[TheHardy]

Currently wireless internet stick. I make sure all my other apps are closed down, and usually, if I am planning on making an important outgoing call, I tend to reboot before hand, just to be sure that it is not some other software interaction.

[cu2o2o2]

Currently wireless internet stick. I make sure all my other apps are closed down, and usually, if I am planning on making an important outgoing call, I tend to reboot before hand, just to be sure that it is not some other software interaction.

There probably where your problem is. Give your wireless internet connection a VOIP test to see its latency and jitter. Your ping times should ALWAYS be lower than 100ms anytime of the day, any higher would give you call dropouts or one-way audio...or may not even be usable for VOIP.

Good luck!

[ddd]

No wireless connection can warranty QoS you need + the reboot habit is very good.

[TheHardy]

I am aware that I am somewhat playing with fire as far as that is concerned, knowing the limitations and difficulties. The pings and latencies and jitter seem low when I do run the tests for them, but those may change when I do establish the call. That is one reason that I was hoping that there was something that I could tweak on my end, other than changing my connection (which at this time is not an option).

[bridonca]

The default codec that comes with the Freephoneline softphone (g.711) has practically no tolerance to jitter. It is also has relatively high bandwidth requirements, which is never a plus in a wireless environment. So your options are extremely limited when using the softphone on a crappy internet connection. Here is a test for you to regularly use to give you an idea how suitable your internet connection is to VOIP. http://myspeed.visualware.com/servers/n ... erate.com/

[TheHardy]

The default codec that comes with the Freephoneline softphone (g.711) has practically no tolerance to jitter. It is also has relatively high bandwidth requirements, which is never a plus in a wireless environment. So your options are extremely limited when using the softphone on a crappy internet connection.

Thanks for confirming that. I kind of thought that anyways. I suppose I should xpost this into the suggestions thread, and formally request that the FPL softphone at some point in its evolution include the ability to select codec. As a non-programmer, I have no clue whatsoever as to how bandwidth requirement is coded or any of the variables involved therein, so I am unsure if that is indeed 'fixable' for the FPL softphone.

I have the link for the viability test from a previous post of yours, thanks for that also!

[bridonca]

In a practical sense, it is not easily fixable. The programming language that the softphone uses, JAVA, has in it's arsenal, some of the oldest and most useless codecs in it's toolkit. g.711 is one of it's better codecs. To add other codecs would require more programming, and there is no value in going through all that work, because it is free client.

Also, the other codec Freephoneline uses, g.729, is a licensed codec in which freephoneline has to pay a royalty. Not the end of the world if one is getting $50 for SIP settings, but when you are giving the client away for free, it is quite a cost.

Short but nasty answer, your internet connection sucks, and that is not Freephoneline's problem! I would take great pleasure in you driving your internet carrier nuts complaining to him. The might take 5 years to fix the problem though.

[TheHardy]

That is a very complete and honest answer! At least I know not to bother holding my breath any time soon! As you say, the point about complaining too much about free software has its limitations to be sure. The whole world of generic vs licenced codecs is all new to me, so perhaps that warrants a little research on my part when I have the time and inclination. I doubt that I will get far with my ISP, as you can clearly read who it is ... I may have better success in emptying my tube of toothpaste on the counter and then trying to stuff it all back inside the tube.

[TheHardy]

Ongoing troubles with the FPL 3.0.3.0 softphone and DTMF touch tones.

Internet connection is stable and decent, so short of having a SOLID wired connection, seems to be working well. Other apps are closed, computer is freshly rebooted.

Simple key press DTMF systems seem to work more or less (but NOT perfectly)... IE:
a) Environment Canada Pre-recorded weather: 604-664-901x (0-7)
b) BC Ferries Info: 604-444-2890 / 888-223-3779

More complex ones, like checking voicemail, doing tele-banking (when webbanking crashed) and accessing any LD dial around service all fail miserably; these are the ones that need longer inputs like 10D phone numbers, 13D account #'s etc ...
c) iNUM access #s: 778-786-3497 / 403-775-1446 / 416-800-4303
d) local Telus landline voicemail access: 604-588-7999
e) local Telus MOBILITY vm access: 778-580-4002
f) local Rogers vm access: 604-418-3471 / 778-317-5607
g) V-access # for dialing non-dialable (US) 800s: 778-292-7499 / 604-495-5944 / 604-288-7922
h) xpresscall LD prepaid calling: 604-638-8226 / 403-705-2034 / 780-665-0766

Those are a few that I use, some more than others.

Again, this is with the 3.0.3.0 softphone after a clean reboot. When trying to do a voicemail check, for example, after about 5-6 digits are entered, the system is barfing saying xyz is not a valid number, with some of the numbers being repeated as double, others missing etc. This seems to be WORSE if I use the KEYPAD on the softphone, rathern than just TYPING in the numbers.

Ports are fwded/unblocked in firewall etc. Other inbound/outbound calls work "acceptably", but my DTMF is almost completely hooped.

Is this just a known shortcoming of the softphone, or is this a buggy re-introduction of something, or is the much-promised NEW version going to address this finally?

I did a LOT of reading on the forums with searches, but most of it was relevant to an ATA or some other configuration that I cannot do with the FPL softphone.

Let me know if I am just SOL or if there is something simple that I am missing!

Steve/Kris: do I need to do test calls or something at a certain time for troubleshooting, or am I just SOL? Don't mind going the extra mile to help out if that is what it takes!

[vandelay]

In my experience, your problem is not necessarily bandwidth related. I have the same setup as you, but I have high bandwidth (download on an average day is around 1mb/sec) yet I have the same problem.

When placing a call, it takes about 30 seconds before I can hear anything or can be heard. The same thing occurs if I need to go through any sort of menu (press 1 for English etc...)

Funny thing is, once voices can be heard, the quality is absolutely perfect- no lag, no noise.

[beverly]

This is also been happening to me for the last 2 weeks, only when I press 1 I stop hearing things and not for 30 sec.

I have an ATA setup with 15mb down and 1 up. Nothing has changed on my setup. Powered cycled everything and still doesn't work

[Jake]

I had a similar thing with my set up, it also effected the phones ringing and such.

I still don't know why this effected things, but I thought I would mention it. How I got my set up working again was to disable UPnP in my router. All calls were fine after that.

I only found it by accident when I was messing around with something else and doing this fixed the calls.