SBC DSL and Voange call quality

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 01, 2004 Posts: 3

Hello all, I thinking of switching to Vonage. But I wanted to hear some feedback from someone who has SBC DSL 1.5/128 speed (or any other DSL that speed). I know to keep my DSL I have to keep my old line number to keep DSL. I have tested my speeds and my up speed is usually above 175. I live in CA and the DSL is very reliabler nad I have cell pohne backup's. How is the call quality?

Thank you all in advance

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2004 Posts: 5

I have SBC DSL as well speed is about 700k up and 250k down. The voice quality is great as long as I do not use the Internet for anything else. Two Vonage lines at the same time are ok but browsing or downloading while talking even one single line is not an option. All acces goes through the ATA but the priority for voice does not seem to work. I tried bandwidth saver, no difference.

Kees-Jan

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 01, 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the reply. Well that stinks if thats the case, we are always on the web and talking on the phone. And we have a wireless router that has three computers hooked up to it. Don't know if that makes a difference.

bridgeje

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 1

What kind of router do you have? Most high end routers and some of the newer low end routers have "QoS" (Quality of Service) settings that will give Voip priority. I am the Network Administrator for an ISP in CT and we provide aDSL using SBC phone lines. Quite a few of our customers are using the Vonage service with sucess. I have a T-1 in my home and until I set the QoS policy up in my Cisco router, even with a T-1, when my kids downloaded music from my server at work, the phone service died. After adding the configuration, the problem went away and I am running 3 Vonage systems on the line.

Regards,

Dan S.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 01, 2004 Posts: 3

I have a Netgear 802.11b wireless model mr814v2. We have the basic DSL. I'm not sure if my router has QoS setting on it or not. I'll have to check. Deperado do you know if surfing while on the phone has any effect on call qaulity with Vonage? I'm also thinking og going up to their Pro package with 1.5-3.0 down 384K up. Do you think this would matter much?

Thanks,
Bridgeje

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2004 Posts: 5

As far as I know there are no or very few 'consumer' routers out ther that have QoS. One of the Linksys units has it, but it works only from LAN port to LAN port, not to WAN, so won't help.

If you know of a low cost router that does do the job, please post.

My configuration now is Router, ATA, Wireless bridge, DSL modem (Speedstream 5100b PPP done by modem). The ATA wouldbe better on the other side of the bridge but Vonage at some point changed my firmware and now it won't connect to my modem anymore. It works on the other side of the bridge, it works with a router in between, but direct, nope. Tried bridged mode, PPPoE on modem, no luck.

It looks like something at a very Ethernet low level. The ATA keeps resetting a few seconds after power up when I connect it directly to the modem.

I have ordered a second router so I can move the ATA to the other side of the bridge. Maybe the latency of the bridge ruins my phone performance during downloads. I don't know. I really want to keep Vonage for our two lines, but my wife is about to throw it out the window. She just hates the garbled calls and I can't blame her.

Kees-Jan

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 29, 2004 Posts: 4

Remember that Voip uses symetric upload and download speeds so you are effectively limited by the [usualy] lower upload speed.

Vonage calls are generaly taking 70-90Kbps symetric for each Vonage line being used. Use 2 lines simultaneously and you may run into problems if your upload speed is only 128K

Bandwidth saver will help but dgrade quality.

I have not been impressed with the QoS on the Motorola router although I have friends who claim to be happy with it and other consumer routers that are geared to the Voip market

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 02, 2004 Posts: 5

The new router pretty much fixed the bandwidth problem.

As it turns out the wireless bridge was the problem. Now that the VT1000v is on the other side of the bridge performance is far better. Call sound better and the Internet interference is pretty much gone.

I checked and whenever there is Internet traffic on the wireless bridge (802.11b) the ping time to any web site jumps up 100 to 150 ms, a number of times. That is a certain way to ruin a Voip call.

Now that I have the VT1000v in the right location, right behind the second router and DSL modem, there sometimes are slight drop-outs during a heavy download but nothing that interferes with normal call. The voice priority on the VT1000v is not perfect, but good enough for me.

I posted a separate message on this board about the need for a second router and the SBC Speedstream 5100b and VT1000v.