Where do we stand on this dropped calls problem?

[TSellers]

After going through 4 routers, 2 modems and 1 ATA, I'm now wondering what I should be doing to address the ongoing dropped calls problem.

I realized I am not sure what FPL's 'Official' stance on this problem is?

Is FPL doing anything to adddress the problem further, or is each user being advised that the problem must lie within their devices or DSL provider and it is up to them to solve it?

One approach that might help would be if users who are having suspected hardware issues could have access to swapping out suspected bad hardware for 'known good' devices for testing purposes somehow.

It would seem that as this problem is becoming a common issue for many users, a formal approach is needed to help everyone who experiences it find a resolution. This would also benefit FPL. For example, I was about to purchase the long distance plan, but instead bought a phone card to use with my cell phone instead and use it for important calls. I have also stopped recommending the service to friends and associates as the dropped calls problem is pretty significant.

[FONGO_steve]

After going through 4 routers, 2 modems and 1 ATA, I'm now wondering what I should be doing to address the ongoing dropped calls problem.

I realized I am not sure what FPL's 'Official' stance on this problem is?

Is FPL doing anything to adddress the problem further, or is each user being advised that the problem must lie within their devices or DSL provider and it is up to them to solve it?

One approach that might help would be if users who are having suspected hardware issues could have access to swapping out suspected bad hardware for 'known good' devices for testing purposes somehow.

It would seem that as this problem is becoming a common issue for many users, a formal approach is needed to help everyone who experiences it find a resolution. This would also benefit FPL. For example, I was about to purchase the long distance plan, but instead bought a phone card to use with my cell phone instead and use it for important calls. I have also stopped recommending the service to friends and associates as the dropped calls problem is pretty significant.

The reason we can't get much attention from it on our end is because if we add up all our customers and all of our wholesale/resale providers customers that use our network, the number of people having this problem can be counted in two-digits, versus the high tens of thousands of regular daily uses.

Phone call wise, we get maybe a couple phone calls a week of this problem. We offer some suggestions, and usually never hear back from them again. It seems the long-standing issues are the ones in the forum here, but even then, only 20-30 people complaining of it isn't even 1% of our customer base. For that reason, we can't justify yet that this is 100% us, 100% customer end, or a 50/50 mix of problems along the way. For a free service - man hours are important money, so we can't devote them into working on issues that may not exist for us!

That being said, our support staff will gladly try and do what we can to help. I have no problem spending some time outside of my paid work hours helping troubleshoot or trying to duplicate this myself on my home network.

As of right now, I haven't been able to duplicate this using the following routers and ATA's:
Routers I own:
D-Link DGL-4300
D-Link DGL-4500
Linksys WRT54G (stock firmware)

ATA's I own
Grandstream HT-286
Linksys PAP-2T (3.1 firmware)

ATA/Router combo I have used briefly (no long calls on this one)
Thomson SpeedTouch ST780

All combinations of the above on two 5mb DSLs line have yielded in no disconnects. (two loops at my place with different providers)
All combinations of the above on a 1.3mb DSL line (before I had a profile change) yielded no disconnects, but occasional quality issues when I was downloading/uploading extensively at the same time

Used the above with a KW freephoneline number and a 416 freephoneline number

[TSellers]

THanks for the feedback. Keep in mind that for every user who reports a dropped call, there are probably many more who do not. In my opinion, as the user base grows, the problem will along with it.

My personal opinion is we can probably discount routers, as I have so far used 4 or them from 3 manufacturers (Asus 15N, Linksys 160 and 320, Buffalo G300NH) with a wide range of settings, including DD-WRT. Probably ditto on modems after I used 2 Thomson 516's. Probably can discount the DSL providers as it seems reports here have come from users on Telus, Bell, Shaw, etc. I have also had the problem when I was on Telus, then moved to Teksavvy on PPPOE and had the problem there (each service entering my dwelling on different lines BTW). However I have only had the one ATA, the Linksys PAP2T, which has the benefit of active cooling.

I'm happy to continue to try and work through the problem and try to isolate it, which eventually may help others, but pretty reluctant to just go out and buy another ATA only to find my original was fine. As you say, ironically it could be something as weird as more than one heavy bird landing or crapping on your overhead phone line that comes into your house, now how do you diagnose things like that!

[FONGO_steve]

Active cooling on the ATA eh?
Never done that on an external hardware device before.. but lots of DIY active cooling on internal PC components!

Regarding the ATA - someone in the calls drop thread mentioned playing with the NAT settings and having some luck with that. I can't remember who (may have been you for all I know), but have you tried that on yours?

[TSellers]

I should take a picture of the cooling setup:

1) A Belkin notebook computer cooler stand from Costco, USB powered.
2) These little pot cooling racks of different diameters from a chinese kitchen supplies store in Chinatown
3) Stack the ATA, Modem, and router on top of the Belkin pad perched on the nested pot coller racks so that air flows up from beneath and around them.

I remember changing something in the ATA at the suggestion in the thread, so that probably was me.

BTW, I just came across a feature code list that I found useful for figuring out what some of the setting in the PAP2T meant here.

[Bloodsong]

I wanted to step in and give some more (negative results sorry) troubleshooting that I've been doing.
As those who pay attention to my posts have probably notice I only recently got an official config file.
So far I have been testing various Softphones/SIP-phones, not Hardware yet.
I bring this up as some people who report the dropped calls have done so for softphone calls as well.

I've spent the last 96hours, almost straight dialed into a conference bridge.
I've had one drop during that time, when my son knocked over my laptop.
I tried X-Lite, Zoiper Free, Zoiper Communicator, SJPhone and a couple of other soft phones (BTW I like Zoiper Free the best out of the ones I've tried.)
I've spent up to 7 hours straight dialed in through FPL, and an equally long time on my longest dial through a SIP-to-SIP call using what I believe to be an FWD account on IAX2, and about an hour using Skype.

This way I've been able to confirm that I haven't seen any issues with either my softphone settings or my network settings as they related to any of the software or the accounts. Right now I've been dialed in from work, behind a firewall overwhich I have no control, for 3 hours 21 minutes and 36, 37, 38... seconds.

I think I'll dial-out and switch accounts for further testing now.

And tonight I'll test the official FPL Softphone for a few hours.

Be good, happy hunting, good luck.

[newbie]

Hi,

I have been having the dropped call problem a fair bit the last few weeks. I originally had some initial issues getting my setup going and after tweaking with my router I thought I had the problem fixed.

Recently calls have been dropped, no sound which it then recovers (about 20 seconds), and a report from family that instead of going to VM it just disconnected.

I have the PAP2 bought from freephoneline with the config file. I have also referenced the document that Steve has posted in the config area. I am running the Tomato Firmware on an Asus WL-520GU. Over time I have tried a few different QOS settings and I settled on one that I thought worked well (and did work for a period of time). Internet provider is Acanac which is DSL.

My most recent thought was that it is because I have the ATA connected into my home's phone system. The phone system is not connected to an outside source. There is one line run from the drop point to my DSL modem, but that is not connected into the rest of the system.

If there are suggestions out there I am willing to tweak as necessary.

Thanks!

[bridonca]

Just for kicks, try another port instead of 5060. Port 6060 and port 5061 are what I use. Make sure the router forwards selected ports to the ATA. See what happens.

Make sure you get rid of QOS, one of the most useless and troublesome features out there. The g.729 codec, with it's small bandwidth requirements and high jitter tolerance does more for audio quality than any QOS feature.

[TSellers]

Thanks bridonca,

Will give that a try.

Insteresting note on QOS too. My seat of the pants feeling with the last couple of routers was I couldn't notice any differencewith QOS on or off. For example, if you have a bunch of torrents running, and you pick up the phone and make a call, I presumed you'd see a drop in the overall torrent bandwidth while you were on the phone?

Ironically I got the Buffalo router and installed DD-WRT thinking I would be finally getting one of the best items for the job. However after about a week it seems to me that my line quality, signal, etc., were better with the Linksys WRT320N from Costco. ANother thing I seem to see on that same Buffalo router is since I've used it I get one or two reports a day that the web server I'm running on the DMZ has lost it's connection to the internet for a few minutes.

[sternem]

Just wanted to add that I've been getting dropped calls now. I've been using the same setup since August of last year. The dropsies started about a week and a half ago.

I'm using the SPA-3102 (similar to 2102), and set everything to what the sample SPA-2102 config mentions last night. Still had 1 dropped call after that.

[TSellers]

I'm curious about something. If for some reason there is a hiccup along the DSL line so that your DSL loses connectivity for even a few milliseconds, does that mean the call will automatically be dropped as well? For example, what if there was a power spike at the Providers DSL switching station in your neighbourhood? Another thing I'm curious about, would little service interupts just lasting a few milliseconds be something that may be common to any DSL service but be enough that while you wouldn't see it affect your internet, torrents, etc., it would be enough to drop a call? Or does the ATA try to keep the call alive to make up for such a possibility?

[newbie]

I'm currently testing on a different port and have done a slight tweak from a post in another board (tonyqc I think).

I am going to disagree about QOS. After setting my QOS correctly I did notice an improvement in the call quality. With torrent traffic set to lowest priority and phone traffic the highest the call quality was much better.

[TSellers]

newbie,

It would probably be helpful then if you posted your router make and model?

[newbie]

I did.... Tomato Firmware on an Asus WL-520GU

Additional tweaks I used are from: http://forum.freephoneline.ca/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=298

[Bloodsong]

I'm currently testing on a different port and have done a slight tweak from a post in another board (tonyqc I think).

I am going to disagree about QOS. After setting my QOS correctly I did notice an improvement in the call quality. With torrent traffic set to lowest priority and phone traffic the highest the call quality was much better.

Glad to hear that's working for you newbie, that's the same settings I suggest for QOS testing, and is why I say if the firmware/router know how to do QOS properly, those settings should (theoretically) work for anyone.

But I always caution that I've seen QOS do well and poorly, so it's always a worthy test.

Some of the opensource firmwares like DD-WRT and Tomato also allow for very customizable QOS setups by using a shell console and modifying the config files, but that's just a little bit too much for basic troubleshooting

[TSellers]

I noticed the post about the counterfeit PAP2T ATA's in that link above. A few reflections on grey market hardware for those that may have fallen prey. First off, do not panic. Selling knock-off's from the OEM Manufacturer are common practice in Hong Kong. For example, I used to live above Stanley Market in Hong Kong, where I could buy all my Patagonia clothes such as shorts that were $45.00 in Canada for $4.50. They were'nt actually 'fake' or 'counterfeit' per se, they were the stock over runs from the factory that manfufactured for Patagonia. As the owner of one of the shops in Stanley Market who also had the factory where they made the shorts explained to me, if they had an order for say, 6,000 pairs of shorts, they may have to make 7,000 or more to cover seconds and culls. They typically may end up with hundreds of pairs of shorts left over that they had not been paid for, and could not sell as branded goods, so off they went to (grey) market at either Stanley or Kowloon.

It's most likely the PAP's sold on eBay are the same situation as it's probable that Linksys also outsources their production to Shenzen. If you bought an ATA from eBay, take a look at the plastic case. You'll notice it is identical. That's because it is. Even in Hong Kong they are not going to go to all the trouble and expense to mill extrusion dies so that they can fake a $25.00 item. Let's face it, the market for PAP2T's is not quite on the same scale as Guicci, Tommy Hiflinger or the Gap. So the cases are coming from the same factory that sub contracts to the factory makes the ATA's for Linksys. Now the question is, is it the same for the PCB? If you are concerned, and have your eBay ATA, take the case apart and have a look and see if it sports a ESS Visba 3 (ES3890F) chipset with a Realtek RTL8019AS IC on a flow soldered PCB. If so, then although you may still have a grey market ATA because you found the MAC does not jive withal, it is pretty much the same as the one you'd get from Newegg or where ever. Again, rest assured that mom and pop conterfeiting operations that operate out of their bedroom probably don't have the ability to Flow Solder PCB's while applying a blanket of nitrogen to them, they'd have to have a nitrogen filled bedroom! Why is the MAC not in the Linksys assigned range? Probably the same reason they cut the labels from the Patagonia goods in Stanley market, because the owner of the plant that manufacturers the ATA's for Linksys doesn't want to be identified by Linksys and lose his contract, while at the same time greed dictates he doesn't want to 'eat' his production overruns when he can easily pass them out the back door to his brother who sells them not only on eBay, but from his shop on the ground floor at Golden Arcade or on Apliu Street in ShamShuiPo.

I have also read that a large number of the eBay ATA's are units that were originally manufactured specifically for the large VOIP companies, especially Vonage.

So the purpose of this is not to condone buying grey market items for half price off eBay, but to advise you don't necessarliy have to panic if you have. If you bought your ATA from an eBay seller in Hong Kong for around $35.00, I'm guessing it is 99.9% probable it is grey market. Is the seller a devious shyster who you wouldn't trust with your daughter? Easily could be, also maybe not. Take out your screwdriver and have a look at the PCB. If it is yellowish in color with big blobs of solder you probably need to run right out and get another. If it is a dark green PCB with the ESS chipset and Realtek controller that has obviously been flow soldered, then if it works, carry on, if it doesn't work, the best you could hope for would be your eBay seller might replace it with another grey market unit if you're lucky. However, come to think of it, given the tech support and warranty support I've gotten recently from companies like Asus and D-Link, I guess the eBay sellers couldn't be any worse now could they?

[newbie]

Since my last post I changed my port and have been running with the tweaks mentioned. For a while I thought I was ok but today I came home to the message of "phone doesn't work again". The most detail I have been able to get is that it goes fuzzy and then disconnects.

If I can get more useful information I will post.

[TSellers]

Same here,

I went for a couple of days with no apparent problems, then yesterday and today had a couple of dropped calls.

I wonder if everyone should start to post the time and date of their dropped calls in case there can be any consistency identified in the times it happens, E.G., I wonder if my calls are dropped around the same time as yours?

Mine today was just before 12 noon MST.

[newbie]

Around 3pm and 7pm EST today. So, it is close time frame wise.

[Timmi]

I am replying to a few posts on here all in one message:

I am on Bell fibre DSL, with a 2WIRE modem-router.
I don't have the dropped calls problem with the softphone but I DO have it with a Dlink dph-540 wifi phone I am now using for the service (I thought why get an ata plus phone when the wifi phone can connect to the router as it is it's own ata).
To make sure it's not ports or any other router issue, I blatantly put the phone onto a DMZ, permanently, to eliminate any router config issues. And I still get the problem. Time into call will vary - completely random - it just cuts off.

I already totalled the sound out jack on my laptop using the softphone, because I was constantly plugging and unplugging the heaphones - needed them to eliminate echo back into the mic, but had to unplug those to hear the softphone ring when not at computer or to hear music on speakers, so something better as a setup was necessary, hence the wifi phone.

I do hear you Steve, when you say that most users don't appear to have this problem. But I would be curious to see how many of them don't still have an actual phone line at home... I would venture to guess that most still do... and those for whom it doesn't work won't look for a forum, because they aren't tech savvy, and would just shrug it off and continue to use their home phone line most of the time.

QoS: QOS will, and will not, make a difference. Here is why I say that. From your computer to your router, QoS will make a difference. It reserves something like 128k of bandwidth for your phone calls, that it will release when no call is being made, but with 100% priority given to calls (so no matter what other activities, if you have at least that much bandwidth available, your call will get it all, leaving any excess to the other applications). However, this does NOT reserve a tunnel from your modem/router to your ISP, as you have no control over the rest of the infrastructure, and QoS to be most effective needs to be implemented from end to end, and not just one of the routers. So yes, it can help, but no, there is no guarantee it will help where help is needed, depending on the situation.

I suspect that the softphone app's continuous small-bandwidth-required video that plays constantly, is a QOS trick, to reserve an amount of bandwidth for the calls, and this assures a constant connection between your computer, through your ISP, the cloud, and onto FPL, and it pauses making place for your actual call (ie: that same video stream becomes the actual data stream carrying your call, as I noticed the video to pause when making a call). You do not get this end-to-end "QoS trick" when you are not running the softphone, as the routers and ATA alone don't have such a possibility (or am I wrong, and might there be a way to get this with your router/modem to FPL without the computer's (softphone's) complicity?).