Fading connection on wireless VOIP

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 22, 2006 Posts: 2

I use various VOIP providers. EG Vonage soft and Skype. I have a new Toshiba Equium M50 on which these are installed. I use Wifi mostly (no cordless phones about). The problem is that when speaking I seem to fade out periodically for a few seconds before resuming contact until the next fade-out. I can usually hear the other person during these fade-outs. I f the connection is dropped it's usually because the other person thinks wrongly that I disconnected. I thought it might be something to do with Outlook periodically collecting email but I am also on a server system which "pushes" mail to my mailbox and I have this problem regardless of whether either service is running or not. I assume this must be some kind of a conflict but have no idea where to start looking for it. I should add that my husband uses a different, much older notebook on the same WIFI networks (not always at the same time) and he never has this problem. I conclude from this that "congestion" on the network or speed of connection are unlikely to be the reason for the problem. Does anyone out there have a solution?

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 6:42 am Post subject:

If it were me I would try to pin it down as a WiFi problem by running connected via Ethernet for a while and confirm it does not happen.

The next thing you could do is bring up the Windows Task Manager and watch network usage on the networking tab.

In general, if you suspect that you have an issue on your computer, you should make sure your anti-virus definitions are up to date and you should run two spyware detectors.

The next thing I would do is download and install a WiFi monitor that can provide you information about your signal. It may be that the wifi card in your new laptop is not as good as your husband's or uses a different technology (b vs. g). You may be experiencing interference from an outside source (cordless phone or microwave).

Finally you will want to check out your network connection in general. You may want to try testyourvoip as a start, but if your problems are intermittent then a longer term monitor like ping plotter may be more applicable.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 22, 2006 Posts: 2

Thanks very much. I've tried the ethernet connection and now seem to have uninterrupted VOIP. So the problem is obviously the Wifi connection cycling on and off every minute or thereabouts.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 28, 2006 Posts: 1

I have wireless internet from a local company here. I shoot about 5-miles to the water tower for my connection. I have disconnected the cat 5 from both computers and after about 3-5 minutes into a vonage call it starts getting "choppy" or I start breaking up on both ends. Speed test show my downlload at 768 and 700 uploads. Would you suggest I start with a ping test after this "choppy" starts after a few minutes? Thanks.