My line at other end is choppy

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 15

When I call anyone, I can hear them crystal clear but they cannot hear me. The voice is choppy (I heard back the voice recorded on an answering machine as well).
Voip speed test gave me the following results:
I have the following test results:
My Results
Download 515,552 bps
Upload 103,864 bps
QOS 99%
RTT 29 ms
MaxPause 155 ms

I was advised in the forum by "Natehoy" (It was nice of him) to carry out a Voip test from the site www.testyourvoip.com

I had done but the results are disappointing.

This test has been carried out at 4:30 AM Boston time when the traffic was less. Otherwise I can't carry out the test. Upload score is 1.0 and Download score is 4.2

The detailed results are as below:.

1.0 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58 14.4%
Latency 0.19 4.8%
Packet Discards 0.23 5.8%
Packet Loss 2.99 75.0%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 411 ms
Packet Discards 3.6%
Packet Loss 46.7%
Loss Periods Min: 20 ms
Avg: 40 ms
Max: 400 ms
Burst Loss

Jitter Min: 0 ms
Avg: 1 ms
Max: 49 ms

Signaling Quality Post-Dial Delay 360 ms
Call Setup Time 360 ms
Media Delay 719 ms
MOS Analysis FROM Boston To You

Media Quality MOS 4.2 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.57 76.7%
Latency 0.17 23.3%
Packet Discards 0.00 0.0%
Packet Loss 0.00 0.0%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 411 ms
Packet Discards 0.0%
Packet Loss 0.0%
Loss Periods Min: 0 ms
Avg: 0 ms
Max: 0 ms
No Loss

Jitter Min: 4 ms
Avg: 2 ms
Max: 20 ms

Many times I am tempted to cancel my account with Vonage since we are stuck with our ISP. Most of the time 99% of the time the person at the other end cannot hear me, where as I can hear them crystal clear. I was advised to join a public vpn since it is felt that our ISP provider is deliberately dropping/blocking the outgoing Voip packets(detecting them with a software since he is the telephone line provider as well)
Any suggestions
regards

Damras
Zoom Modem Bridge, Vonage
Motorola VT1005 Telephone Adaptor,
Panasonic Easa Phone

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 17, 2006 Posts: 16

choppy sound on the other end of a call is most often an upload speed/bandwidth issue.

i think Natehoy already mentioned this, but 104k upstream is marginal. Vonage needs about 90k (+ there's likely some TCP/IP overhead). you're operating really close to the edge... you can see that in the packet loss of your connection.

I don't imagine that QoS will really help out since it's not an issue of pacing your outoging traffic - it's a matter of even having enough outgoing bandwidth.

have you tried using bandwidth saver (in the Vonage dashboard)?

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:59 am Post subject:

A couple of questions...

Is this test with a computer hooked directly to your Internet connection? I want to make sure that there is nothing else happening on your Internet connection while the test is running.

Have you tried using the "Bandwidth Saver" feature on Vonage? In your case, since you only have a little over 100kbps upload and Vonage requires 90 at "best" quality, I'd seriously consider lowering Vonage to 50 or even 30 and see if that helps. When your bandwidth starts getting marginal, the slightest bit of bandwidth consumed by other applications will cause problems.

Tell us how your network is set up. What Vonage device do you have? How many computers? How are they hooked up?

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 28, 2005 Posts: 15

I have connected the computer directly to the modem (Speedtouch USB modem) without the Vonage telephone adaptor and had run the test. the following are the results. It appears worse than the normal way my telephone adaptor is connected i.e.Zoom modem bridge connected to the DSL line and then to Vonage VT 1005 Motorola Telephone adaptor and then to the computer.

Media Quality MOS 1.0 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58 14.4%
Latency 0.17 4.3%
Packet Discards 0.01 0.2%
Packet Loss 3.23 81.0%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 386 ms
Packet Discards 0.1%
Packet Loss 45.7%
Loss Periods Min: 20 ms
Avg: 20 ms
Max: 160 ms
Burst Loss

Jitter Min: 0 ms
Avg: 3 ms
Max: 14 ms

Signaling Quality Post-Dial Delay 359 ms
Call Setup Time 359 ms
Media Delay 734 ms
MOS Analysis FROM Boston To You

Media Quality MOS 2.7 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58 25.0%
Latency 0.25 10.9%
Packet Discards 0.63 27.4%
Packet Loss 0.84 36.5%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 386 ms
Packet Discards 1.6%
Packet Loss 2.2%
Loss Periods Min: 20 ms
Avg: 20 ms
Max: 40 ms
Random Loss

Jitter Min: 3 ms
Avg: 12 ms
Max: 58 ms

Signaling Quality Post-Pickup Delay 365 ms
Call Setup Time 350 ms
Media Delay 398 ms

I shall try the bandwidth saver and see whether it works fine.

regards

Damras

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:47 am Post subject:

OK. And nothing else that would require heavy Internet usage was running on that computer when you were running the test?

It looks like you need to talk to your ISP. Your packet loss numbers are just too high, and that means your connection has a serious routing problem or something else is sapping your bandwidth.

What upload and download speeds are you supposed to get?

You can also try the Voip test using the "Conserve Bandwidth" option instead of the "Conserve Speech Quality" option. That will pretty closely simulate Vonage's 30kbps setting.

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

NateHoy wrote:

OK. It looks like you need to talk to your ISP. Your packet loss numbers are just too high, and that means your connection has a serious routing problem or something else is sapping your bandwidth.

Nate, you're a master of understatement!

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 12:27 am Post subject:

I know I was getting better than 1.0 (I think it was in the 2 range) when I was trying to use a dial-up modem with that tester... If you're getting 1.0, call your ISP and let them know you're losing packets left & right... that's actually the worst score I've ever seen on here.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 17, 2006 Posts: 16

and just as a precaution, check your cables. someone on one of the other threads reported that their packet loss was cleared up when they replaced all of their coax.