Poor quality calls

[gixie]

Hi,
I have been using FPL for a while now. For some time I started having problems: people are calling me, I hear them perfectly, but they complain about not understanding a word of what I'm saying. I tried calling from my cell phone and indeed, the voice is cutting all the time to the point of not understanding the other person.
Can anyone advise?
I tried rebooting the ATA but to no avail.
I set up my friend's device with the same ATA, same router and same ISP and he doesn't have my problem.
My network config did not change recently, with the exception of a WIFI access point that I added for WIFI coverage of my back yard.
Thanks in advance!

[maximebeauvais]

I have been with FPL for the last 2 weeks and everything was going well.

However, yesterday and today I had the same problem that you describe. I have rebooting my ATA and router and I did a test call with my friend and everything was fine but the next call I had, very poor communication. I can heard people without any problem but they could not really understand what I'm saying.

Any advise?

Thanks

PS: as for my setup, I had no change at all. My internet is dw: 10Mb and up: 1.5Mb which is pretty good.

[lustucru]

If your ISP is Bell, please note that their network is currently experiencing intermittent problems and this may affect FPL service even if your Internet connection looks good.

Got the same problem yesterday and fixed it after rebooting the connection hub (modem/router).

Check this site for Bell status:

http://support.bell.ca/Internet/Service-Status

[maximebeauvais]

for me, I'm with videotron.

after some research, i think that yes it could be linked to my internet connection.

I have a dedicated PC just for torrents and I think that when a torrent is active and uploading, then my internet connection get jammed.

I just called home from my work office phone and everything was fine. I guess that the torrents were inactive.

I will do some testing later
1) I will pause my torrent PC for a day or two
2) I will go in my router and play with the QoS
3) I may change the firmware of my router to go with DD-WRT
4) I will do some VOIP test connection (I found several web site that offer this service)

Anyway, it is hard to have free phone but at the end, it will pay off

PS: my internet connection is 10mbps download and 1mbps upload.......

[bridonca]

I would not waste my time with QOS. It is your internet provider that is shaping your connection, so while you are torrenting, your connection is getting shaped. Which means your VOIP gets affected also. Nothing you do with your router will fix that.

My solution was to get a VPS with a US IP, from a VPS provider like BuyVM. A VPS is handy for multiple reasons, but a big one is that you can torrent remotely using something like 5 megabytes a second to upload and download the torrent. Once you have the torrent file downloaded to your VPS, you can download the file are close to the maximum speed of your internet connection, because you are not uploading. I seems odd that it is faster to download twice, but I can get a 1 gig torrent downloaded to my computer in about 15 minutes.

[gixie]

Hi
I am on cable with Distributel 10/1 connection, however it was not my ISP but the last device added to the network. It seems that my EnGenius access point was messing the frequency of my cordless phone. I will do more tests, but so far unplugging the access point resulted in normal calls.
How to identify the correct channel to use for the access point?
Thanks

[bridonca]

gixie: How close was the cordless phone base to the access point? I know I had problems with a 5.8 mhz phone sounding like garbage when it's base was too close to a 2.4 ghz router. Solution was to keep them further away.

If I would to pick a wifi channel, my first choice would be channel 1, then channel 11. I would not pick channel 6, because that is what most wifi routers default to, and it is better not to have to deal with the congestion.

[gixie]

Hi and thanks for replying,
The router is outside in a plastic Tupperware but the ATA is inside as is the base of my cordless phone. I would say they are about 5 meters apart with the wall of the house in between.
I can't check channels, but I usually keep my devices off channel 6, I noticed it's the noisiest... As I said, the router is offline now, but in spring I will double check and will conduct some tests to prevent this situation..
Thanks for your input everybody.

[maximebeauvais]

FYI

I found a solution to my problem.

I have done several VOIP test connection (google it) with different web site test.

If my torrent were active, my VOIP test connection was on the poor side.

However, as soon as I paused all Torrents, the VOIP test connection was excellent.

I also done some live test with my friend and if torrent were communication were poor....and reverse is true.

I guess that my internet connection (10mbps and 1mbps) is not big enough to support VOIP and Torrent at the same time. Yes I could get a better connection but my main goal to move to FPL is to save money.

My solution is:
active torrent from 10pm to 3pm (when we are sleeping or away from home)
pause torrent from 3pm to 10 pm (when we are home and we could get call from someone)

[bridonca]

You should be able to torrent and use SIP VOIP at the same time at your speed. Your problem is that your ISP is not providing what you paid for, and they are being sneaky about it. Your bit torrent traffic is getting shaped, and your VOIP traffic is getting caught with it. Don't blame your connection, Blame your ISP, and let them know who is at fault!

I have some torrenting tricks for you to try. First, limit the bittorrent connections on your client to 40. Then allow your bit torrent to accept only 2 upload slots. Your torrenting will probably improve, and your VOIP should be better. Again, because your traffic is being shaped.

[gixie]

I think you are right... I have a box uploading a rather big collection of files, 600tb to be more precise, to my crashplan account. Recently the box restarted by itself due to some update and the upload halted. It was at the same time I removed the router outside. Then it was ok for a few days until i realised that the backup on crashplan halted and I restarted it. The problems appeared again. I limited the upload on my crashplan client to 700kbps, and it does make a slight difference, but it stil cuts...
What can I do? I have an IPCop firewall with traffic shaping... What should I shape?
Thanks in advance

[gixie]

Hi,
I just shaped the CrashPlan traffic (port 443, I know, SMTP uses it as well) and put it in the medium group while the 3 ports used by FPL (5004, 5005 and 5060) are in the high priority group...
For now it seems to be working better, but it's just a temporary solution...
I am contemplating upgrading my Internet connection, probably FTTN with Electronic Box. They have unlimted upload between certain times of the day.
What do you think?

[bridonca]

I have never used FTTN, that should fix your upload problem, but since I have not tested it personally, I cannot give much useful input. My only concern is that it is still DSL, just that there is a shorter trip to the fibre op.

[gixie]

I don't really understand your last comment

[bridonca]

FTTN is still DSL from your house to a fibre optic switching station somewhere in your neighbourhood, so FTTN can still have the same limitations of DSL. If done right, it should not be a problem. But you are still dealing with an internet connection going through decades old telco infrastructure designed for analog voice calls. Saying that, FTTN can still be better than newer equipment, but I am also saying it could be a potential issue.

[gixie]

I see, you're right...
I will weigh all the aspects and make up my mind.
I am a cord cutter and until now the 10/1 cable connection fit the bill... But now I have this problem and don't know what to do...
I'll make up my mind... If anyone has any comments, feel free...