Problem in evening with calls happening to often

[viper610]

Hi all,

I started having problems with my phone dropping calls and have sent an email to tech support with little help at all and thought i would post here and maybe get some response.

I have a Linksys SPA2102 ATA connected to a WRT54gL setup running tomato,
I have UDP ports 5060 - 5061 and 10000-20000 and 16384 - 16482 forwarded to my ATA.
I have changed no settings and have had great service for months.

It all started April 24 @ 22:07:56 i received a call heard them talk and the call dropped 9 seconds later. Tried calling back and it would not go through. the rest of the night no phone, in the morning everything was fine.

Next Day April 25 @ 20:33:57 15 minutes into the call it is dropped. I was able to call back and carry on the conversation.

another day cant remember the details in the evening the ATA could not register.

Tonight people can call and the phone will ring but i cant hear anything. when i try dialing out i have a dial tone but then i dial the number and its silent, then it gives a busy signal.

Any ideas?
Thanks

[46jimbo]

I have similar problems when I call France. Everything is perfect for local calls.

I guess a call is passed on through several services before it reaches the recipient. Perhaps the problem lies with the intermediaries?

[Liptonbrisk]

the rest of the night no phone, in the morning everything was fine.

Although FPL's service might be having load issues, I would suspect congestion from your ISP, Acanac, during prime time more than anything else.

Run a few packet loss and jitter tests at night when you're experiencing issues: http://www.pingtest.net/

And, obviously, if you're torrenting without QoS enabled in your router (give priority with your ATA device), then you may experience
problems.

[dibsmft]

From what you have said (viper and jimbo), I think you probably have not completely configured either or both your router and computer/ATA. Initially the voip client can configure and work OK but as other things use the network and ports are released and possibly used by other devices then the voip calls fail.

Change this
"I have UDP ports 5060 - 5061 and 10000-20000 and 16384 - 16482 forwarded to my ATA"
to
I have UDP ports 5061 - 5062 and 10000-20000 and 16384 - 16482 forwarded to my ATA

do not forward 5060
and make sure that the ATA is configured to watch them.

Are you running STUN?
Check your ATA when it is working properly and when not to see what it has registered as the external port (on it Status web page).

[TheHardy]

I run the softphone, and almost always when I place calls, I minimize or close background apps, as I do have severe issues with the softphone on my machine. I can verify that around 5:30pm (PDT), I have a LOT of call failures on outbound calls ... this persists until around 7:30 (PDT) and after that, no more issues.

It is almost CERTAINLY Fongo network congestion ... I don't make a lot of calls in the afternoon, but when I do, they are almost always FLAWLESS. Nothing changes on my setup, and as I say, I knock down all my other apps, so that is not it ... ISP congestion and PING etc are all constant throughout my time-of-day (except weekends!), so I can rule that out as well.

This potential Fongo-server congestion has been brought up before, and there was never any official word back -- I would hope that they are looking into it on the back end of things!

[Liptonbrisk]

I run the softphone, and almost always when I place calls, I minimize or close background apps, as I do have severe issues with the softphone on my machine. I can verify that around 5:30pm (PDT), I have a LOT of call failures on outbound calls ... this persists until around 7:30 (PDT) and after that, no more issues.

It is almost CERTAINLY Fongo network congestion

Bleh. I guess another upgrade is needed soon then.

It is almost CERTAINLY Fongo network congestion ... I don't make a lot of calls in the afternoon, but when I do, they are almost always FLAWLESS. Nothing changes on my setup, and as I say, I knock down all my other apps, so that is not it ... ISP congestion and PING etc are all constant throughout my time-of-day (except weekends!), so I can rule that out as well.

How about DPC latency? http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

[viper610]

dibsmft, My ATA uses port 5060 for line one and 5061 for line 2 (line 2 is not being used) according to the configuration page when i log into the ATA.

I just checked with pingtest and my results were Packet loss 0%, Ping 11 ms, Jitter 1 ms
and when my wife was on the phone just now (8:09pm) the mapped RTP port was 16424 >> 0

Thanks again for your thoughts

[Liptonbrisk]

dibsmft, My ATA uses port 5060 for line one and 5061 for line 2 (line 2 is not being used) according to the configuration page when i log into the ATA.

Then you should only need to port forward 5060 and your RTP range (16384 - 16482) on your ATA's SIP tab. 10000-20000 seems redundant to me.
If you ever use line 2, you need to port forward UDP 5061 as well.

You can change the SIP ports your ATA uses on your Line tabs if you want (and then you would need to make sure your router is port forwarding them).

I just checked with pingtest and my results were Packet loss 0%, Ping 11 ms, Jitter 1 ms
and when my wife was on the phone just now (8:09pm) the mapped RTP port was 16424 >> 0

This would lead me to believe TheHardy is probably correct, unless for some reason on April 24 @ 22:07:56, you were experiencing
congestion from your ISP.

[dibsmft]

dibsmft, My ATA uses port 5060 for line one and 5061 for line 2 (line 2 is not being used) according to the configuration page when i log into the ATA.

I just checked with pingtest and my results were Packet loss 0%, Ping 11 ms, Jitter 1 ms
and when my wife was on the phone just now (8:09pm) the mapped RTP port was 16424 >> 0

Thanks again for your thoughts

Don't forward 5060, only forward 5061 and 5062 UDP. That info should then be put in the ATA line one 5061 and line two 5062 (you may want to use it one day)

Now, what external IP do you see when the ATA is running? Does the ATA use DHCP or has it a static IP?

[viper610]

It has a static IP of 192.168.1.100,

is there really any need for me to change the ports from 5060, 5061 to what you were saying of 5061, 5062?

also the STUN server setting is off

[FONGO_steve]

There's definitely no network congestion on our end.

The outbound symptoms you describe seem to point more at something internally - perhaps network or ATA related.

If you disconnect the ATA and use a softphone, say X-Lite, for a night, do you get any different results? What about bypassing both ATA and Router and using X-Lite while your PC is directly on the modem? Then we can start adding pieces back into the mix and see where the problems come up again.

[dibsmft]

It has a static IP of 192.168.1.100,

is there really any need for me to change the ports from 5060, 5061 to what you were saying of 5061, 5062?

also the STUN server setting is off

If you want to actually diagnose what the problem might be then, yes, change the ports to 5061 and 5062 UDP.

192.168.1.100 is the internal address. What external address does the ATA status page show?

[TheHardy]

There's definitely no network congestion on our end.

The outbound symptoms you describe seem to point more at something internally - perhaps network or ATA related.

If you disconnect the ATA and use a softphone, say X-Lite, for a night, do you get any different results? What about bypassing both ATA and Router and using X-Lite while your PC is directly on the modem? Then we can start adding pieces back into the mix and see where the problems come up again.

Steve: I use the softphone exclusively, and I have issues at peak times with the softphone. Reboot the computer, close everything that auto-starts (except anti-virus and firewall) and I still have outgoing call fails, or calls where I have no audio from the far end. If I make the same calls earlier in the day or later in the day, I have no problem. My pings, latency and jitter all remain relatively the same ....

So how is that NOT a network issue? Confused.