WRTP54G Intermittent Bad Jitter/QoS - call delays/forwards

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 13

Having odd audio/forwarding issues. When I pick up the phone often there is a 3-5 sec pause before I get a dial tone or before a caller hears me when I get an incoming call that comes through. However, incoming calls often also just ring once on the Vonage phone and then automatically forward to the forwarding number I setup with Vonage (as if service is down). Not sure what's causing this or what direction to head in to attempt a fix. The wife is agitated and wanting to convert back to landline Eek

Network setup:
Cable Modem (new Morotola SB5210, docsis 2.0) -> WRTP54G -> 1 phone line. Have 2 PCs and a network printer connected to WRTP54G and wireless on. PC internet usage is light (no bittorrent or heavy use). No 2.4 GHz phone (unless my neighbors have a 2.4 Ghz), mine is 900 Mhz.

ISP:
InsightBB (Lexington, KY). Typically speeds down 2.5-3.8 megabit down and 150-380 up. Most of time 3.5/300+, but it seems to occasionally fluctuate. The Vonage problems seem persistant.

Voip Test:
Varied results... ran it 10+ times in the past few days. Typically I get very few dropped packets but the QoS varies from 25%-99% and the jitter varies from 5-15 ms.

Yesterday I upgraded my 6 yr old modem (was docsis 1.0) at the suggestion of Vonage Tech and my ISP with significant improvement in my packet loss (was losing a lot previously), but still have above Vonage issues and the variable jitter/QoS. Vonage tech also swapped my phone from jack 1 to jack 2, but problem persists today. Below is one of my "better" Voip Test outputs:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 3823160 bps
Upload speed: 362024 bps
Quality of service: 99 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 30 ms
Average download pause: 7 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 39 ms
Average round trip time to server: 151 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 5.3 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.3 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.1 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 4
Estimated MOS score: 3.8

Questions:
1) What influences QoS and jitter? Is this the cause of my symptoms or should I look elsewhere?
2) What's my best fix?

I also have a panasonic wireless webcam (BL-C30A). When someone is accessing it, the above problem get much worse (very choppy audio). I didn't mention it above as it seems fairly independent to the above problem as it occurs even when the camera is unplugged.

I'm looking for the best setup. Seems like I need a better way to prioritize voice? Ideally would love to get it all to work with the webcam being accessed. Past posts seem to be pretty negative towards the WRTP54G. Should I pursue another wireless router and just put the Vonage appliance behind it (this one or my old PAP2)?

Thanks in advance... any suggestions appreciated!

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:28 am Post subject:

I'm betting the wireless webcam is screwing you up. the wrtp54g could prioritize the voice traffic since it's directly connected to the cable modem, but I'm pretty sure, and your complaint seems to reinforce it, that wireless connections screw it up. if it was wired, you wouldn't have the increased problem. this is true of all wireless routers that I know about. there is a wireless qos, but your router and wireless device have to both support it.
the pap2 with a wrt54gl router is a popular setup, but why you have weird problems like a delay when you pick up the phone I'm not sure. did it happen with your pap2?

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 13

Didn't seem to have any problems with the PAP2 and my old BEFSR41 wired router. Occurred when I moved to the WRTP54G. The baseline problem occurs with my wireless webcam unplugged, so I can't help but think that although the additional bandwith contributes to the problem, it's not really the major issue.

How do you set the WRTP54G to prioritize voice? Or is there a better hardware/software solution. Are these symptoms of bad jitter/QoS? If so, how do I attempt to fix that?

Does it's firmware matter? Was 1.00.62 a couple of days ago, now it is reading 1.00.29 despite no reset on my end. Vonage tech keeps emphasizing this has no role and is automatically "fixed" by Vonage as needed. Seems odd to see a roll-back.

Thanks.

Posts: 72 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 15, 2006 Posts: 72

pempey wrote:

How do you set the WRTP54G to prioritize voice? Or is there a better hardware/software solution. Are these symptoms of bad jitter/QoS? If so, how do I attempt to fix that?

One thing you will find when using the "auto QoS" features of home networking devices is that they prioritize RTP packets. Your webcam probably uses RTP so it will contend with Voip for the priority queue. Check out the docs on the devices (Hawking, D-Link, etc.) that do this to see all the different types of traffic that get priority.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 13

Is the WRTP54G a poor wireless router when used with voice (ie. can't juggle traffic and results in poor QoS?)?

Recall problem occurs with webcam not plugged in. For example, results from www.testyourvoip.com

07/24/06 07:14 PM EDT 74.131.55.53 Boston G.711 3.2 4.0
07/24/06 07:08 PM EDT 74.131.55.53 Boston G.711 1.0 1.0
07/24/06 12:10 AM EDT 74.131.55.53 Boston G.711 4.2 4.3

Last night was great. Tonight after work if was really bad. Unplugged router and repowered back on and went back to normal at 7:14. Seems as if I'm rebooting the unit at least daily. At 7:08 when it was bad, my speed was 3 mb/300kbs via speakeasy. Here's the detail via www.testyourvoip.com:

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

Degradation Sources
Codec 0.58 14.4%
Latency 0.98 24.4%
Packet Discards 0.47 11.9%
Packet Loss 1.96 49.2%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 896 ms
Packet Discards 4.8%
Packet Loss 19.9%
Loss Periods Min: 40 ms
Avg: 920 ms
Max: 3100 ms
Burst Loss

Jitter Min: 0 ms
Avg: 26 ms
Max: 3454 ms

Signaling Quality Post-Dial Delay 251 ms
Call Setup Time 271 ms
Media Delay 731 ms

Do I have a bad unit?

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 6

I have the same issues. Vonage said it was because my cable modem wasn't DOCSIS 2.0. So I bought a new one. I still get bad jitter & packet loss. Comcast cable (ISP) says, "Hey, we're giving you 6mbps down & 356kbps up we're doing our job." I think the WRTP54G is the problem.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:50 am Post subject:

pempey wrote:

Does it's firmware matter? Was 1.00.62 a couple of days ago, now it is reading 1.00.29 despite no reset on my end. Vonage tech keeps emphasizing this has no role and is automatically "fixed" by Vonage as needed. Seems odd to see a roll-back.

Thanks.

Firmware would most certainly matter, and 1.00.55 fixed a lot of call waiting and caller ID issues.

I think Vonage may have an older firmware on file for you for some stupid reason, though you can try a manual upgrade to 1.00.60 and see if it sticks. http://vonage.nmhoy.net/upgrade.html

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 7:55 am Post subject:

pempey wrote:

Is the WRTP54G a poor wireless router when used with voice (ie. can't juggle traffic and results in poor QoS?)?

Yes, the WRTP54G's QoS is pretty much nonexistent. If you need a router with QoS, get a real router. I use a WRT54GL and it works great.

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html
http://vonage.nmhoy.net/wrt54gl.html

Quote:

Packet Discards 4.8%
Packet Loss 19.9%
Loss Periods Min: 40 ms
Avg: 920 ms
Max: 3100 ms
Burst Loss

Packet loss is ludicrously high.

Try this:

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/packetloss.html