Help for deadspots

[crusader9]

I'm trying to get my parents setup with the same FPL service I am currently running so they can switch over from Bell permanently.

I have no issues with my FPL. However my parents are having issues that I can't seem to isolate:

I have tested my FPL inbound and outbound and have experienced no dead spots to landlines, cell, other VOIP, 800's etc.

On my parents end, in the outgoing voice, there are random deadspots/breakups usually lasting for about 1/10th of a second about every 15 seconds. If they call a landline, cell phone or another VOIP number this happens (surprisingly it happens less often on VOIP<->VOIP calls for them). There is no issue whatsoever with inbound voice breaking up on their end.

I have my Cisco SPA112 ATA with F/W 1.2.1 (004) configured identical to theirs in every way. They are on Cogeco (located in LaSalle, ON), and I'm on Start communications in Burlington, ON.

I have had them replace the router already, (now using DIR-827) and Configured QoS settings identical to my less superior DIR-655 router.

My parents are due to switch over to Start with a completely new DOCSIS 3.0 modem in the next week or so. I'm not sure what Cable modem my parents are using, but they told me it was about 6 yrs old. As much as I want to blame Cogeco or the older cable modem they're using, I'm still hard pressed to because of no issues with incoming voice transmissions...........

I've tried RTP packet size of 0.02, and 0.03, and changing jitter levels (from lowest to highest). We've viewed the line stats for multiple calls to/from their ATA and the jitter never peaks more than 10ms. There are however always lots of dropped packets (in the 100-200 dropped range for a 5-10 min call usually). To my disbelief, when changing from G711U (default) to G729 there is more breakup and obviously the quality is much worse. NAT mapping is enabled as well as NAT keepalive, and Register expires set to 180.

Anyone have any additional suggestions for things to look at and try? Could this really be a case of bad service from cogeco and/or their cable modem?

[FONGO_steve]

I'd certainly be intrigued to see how things change when they switch to Start in a week (which luckily isn't that far off). Random drop outs like that would definitely make me lean towards some sort of jitter or packet loss as the prime suspect. Have you tried a VoIP test on their setup? http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php

Out of curiosity, are you in a situation where you could try your router + ata on their Cogeco modem? Since you know yours works flawlessly, if it exhibits the same problem at their place as their own does, then we can definitely narrow things down.

[crusader9]

I'd certainly be intrigued to see how things change when they switch to Start in a week (which luckily isn't that far off). Random drop outs like that would definitely make me lean towards some sort of jitter or packet loss as the prime suspect. Have you tried a VoIP test on their setup? http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php

Out of curiosity, are you in a situation where you could try your router + ata on their Cogeco modem? Since you know yours works flawlessly, if it exhibits the same problem at their place as their own does, then we can definitely narrow things down.

Update: The packet loss issue was mitigated by replacing his Cable modem and provider to Start Communications. So most likely the modem was the culprit since Start and Cogeco share a lot of the same infrastructure. He now gets 0% packet loss on his connection when testing with pingtest.net, prior to this he was getting around 2% loss and it impacted his VOIP quality horrendously.

[FONGO_steve]

Thanks for keeping us updated! Glad to hear things cleared up with the change to Start.