Help with Vonage / Shaw Issues

Posts: 22 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Posts: 22

I am experiencing outgoing call quality issues. Funny thing is inbound calls are almost always really clear and free of any issues

1. Your location
Southwest Edmonton, Alberta

2. Your ISP name and type (cable, DSL, wireless etc)
Shaw High-speed

3. Upload and download speeds (average over 4 attempts @ 9PM MST)
speedtest.shaw.ca - 4296 Kbits/s down, 400 Kbits/s up
speedtest.vonage.ca - 2580 Kbits/s down, 416 Kbits/s up

4. Modem make and model
Shaw Cable Modem Motorola SB5100

5. Type of Vonage adapter used ie RT31P2 or PAP2
Linksys PAP2

6. Setup of Network ie Modem---->Vonage Adapter-->PC
Cable Modem---->Wrt54G(alchemy w/QOS)---->PAP2---->Cordless 5.4ghz motorola set.

7. Issue you are experiencing ie dropped calls, choppy audio etc
Poor outgoing call quality

8. DETAILED results from www.testyour voip.com with a test call to Boston.

www.testmy voip.com (boston) - detailed test results:
MOS 3.7 / 5.0
Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58 43.0%
Latency 0.07 5.2%
Packet Discards 0.69 51.7%
Packet Loss 0.00 0.0%
Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 231 ms
Packet Discards 2.1%
Packet Loss 0.0%
Loss Periods
Min: 20 ms
Avg: 20 ms
Max: 40 ms
Random Loss
Jitter
Min: 0 ms
Avg: 8 ms
Max: 39 ms
Signaling Quality
Post-Dial Delay 172 ms
Call Setup Time 172 ms
Media Delay 406 ms

Thanks

Posts: 22 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Posts: 22

No one has any suggestions for me at all?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 16, 2006 Posts: 1

similar problems, similar results, One thing worth mentioning is latency between my router D-link and modem ~20 to 40 ms.
Both Shaw and Vonage don't have any answers
Anyone else?? any sugestions
Art

Posts: 182 · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:54 am Post subject:

You're getting a lot of packet discards, but still it seems like the numbers don't support your poor service.

Are you doing a lot of uploading on your Internet service (e.g. bittorrent, emule, etc.)?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 1

I'm having problems recently with my vonage service over shaw. Up until last week it would drop out once in a while, but not too bad. But recently I've had terrible echoes and breaking up on my calls. It seems to be fine for the first ten seconds of the call, then it all goes wrong. Its like the shaw filter is picking it up and introducing interference. I really don't want to pay an extra 10$ qos fee, but I don't really have a choice as my phone is no longer useable like this.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 17, 2005 Posts: 4

I smell a $10 rat....

Shaw wants us to pay $10 a month to turn on a "QoS" (Quality of service flag on their head-end routers.) $10???? This would be a feature like call waiting on your phone, in todays prices, would you pay $10!!!???? I think not!

I've got the "Shaw Extreme" and, until very recently, have been VERY happy with it. All of a sudden Shaw comes out and says "Oh, we offer a $10 a month service to improve your VoIP calls. OR you can use OUR VoIP services and We'll turn that flag on for you for free!!!!

Funny how my Vonage box has been ROCK SOLID until this new "feature" has been offered. I get 125KB/sec uploads to everything else.. I've got QoS enabled on my Smoothwall firewall to allocate 10KB/sec upstream to my vonage and yet... I'm still getting dropped packets during calls, especially local calls to Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster. With ZERO other activity on my network.

Shaw and their new Ellacoya switches (do a search on Bittorrent and packet shaping) have the ability to mess with any datastream they so choose. If my "conspiracy theory turns out to be true" sign me up on the class action lawsuit...

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 20, 2006 Posts: 2

Exactly the same for me, as well. My Vonage was running stable and sounded crystal clear 98% of the time up until about a week ago. Now our outbound phone calls are plagued by packet loss (or what I perceive as the effects of packet loss, choppy voice that's impossible to understand, etc). I have already done lots of testing to rule out my network at home, only thing that seems to have changed is Shaw (unless Vonage is doing some work without alerting their customers).

I have been a faithful Shaw customer in the Calgary area for 7-8 years, and have been a major proponent of Shaw for that entire time, recommending them to friends, family, and a lot of other people (I work in the industry). I don't use bittorent, gnutella, etc, and my typical total utilization is far below Shaw's acceptable limits. I am running the Extreme-I package. Essentially I am Shaw's perfect customer; I pay my bills and don't rape their service, yet now they want to screw with me like this.

I am seriously having to consider switching over to a company that I have dreaded and hated for years, Telus, because there are no other options available in Calgary. I can't believe Shaw has done this -- they are alienating their most tech-savvy customers in favor of the ones ignorant enough to buy their non-portable IP phone.

QoS fee -- Give Me A Break, Shaw!

Posts: 22 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Posts: 22

Looks like I'm not the only one experiencing this issue, and plus it also just started happening to me over the last couple of weeks (since the oS service started).

Would there be any way to prove the lesser service for VOIP? such as using a different port range, or encryption (similar to the way utorrent or azureus uses encryption) to defeat the shaping?

Maybe there is a way to do two trace routes using different port ranges to prove the inequity?

Ideas here?

Posts: 105 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Nov 19, 2005 Posts: 105

Shaw has been quietly offering the QoS tax....err enhancement for a few months now so that is not your problem.

Seeing as how it IS kind of a fox in charge of the hen house type situation, there is potential for Shaw to intentionally degrade service for competitors. Despite what Shaw says, Vonage IS definitely a competitor to their Digital Phone service. It would be pretty stupid for Shaw to do that because they could get into some mighty hot water. Nice to see Vonage letting them know they won't put up with it.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 12, 2005 Posts: 18

I'm in Calgary, and I've been getting really bad ping times here:

12 brvwil1wcx3-pos2-0-oc192.wcg.net (64.200.240.122) 186.136 ms 208.891 ms 227.494 ms

When my ping times all the way to 69.59.249.31 are good, then I have no problms with Vonage. When they are high, it tends to degrade. Nothing I can do about it though.