Dropped Call On One End

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 06, 2006 Posts: 3

After two years of great service I finally have a problem with Vonage that can't be solved (by me). I tried emailing Vonaged, but they must be too busy to help paying customers... Can you help?

After a few minutes talking with a caller, the caller will all of a sudden be unable to hear me for about 20 seconds. Then they can hear me again. If I stay on long enough it happens again.

There have been no changes to my home network and my download speeds through Comcast are about 5-8 mbs. I use a Linksys router and the Vonage linksys adapter (router).

I even tested the line on a corded phone to ensure it wasn't my cordless phone causing the problem. What can I do?

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

Please post the rest of the technical details listed in the sticky message at the top of the forum.

Does it always take a few minutes for the problem to occur, or does it simply happen once every few minutes, more or less at random?

Posts: 350 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 350

You likely have one way packet loss or jitter. Do the things in the sticky at the top and then open your command prompt on your computer and run the following command:

ping -t -l 600 www.yahoo.com

Let it run for a while and preferally make a phone call. Each line with have "time=". Watch for those times. In general they should be around 50ms but they shouldn't fluctuate more then 20ms from one to the next. If they do, you have jitter. Also watch for line that say "Request timed out". If you see any lines that say this, you have packet loss. After running the ping for a couple of minutes, press CTRL-C to stop and it will display "Ping statistics". You should write the information displayed down.

When you see "Request timed out" that will probablly correspond to loss of audio, especially if you see multiple time outs in a row, because your internet connection is failing to send (or receive) data at all. Greater than 20ms fluctuations in time times (which is called latency) is jitter, that is, your internet connection is failing to deliver the data sent (or received) in the same order and spacing it was transmitted in). Either one is a problem with your internet connection and you will need to report the problem to your internet provider for them to repair.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 06, 2006 Posts: 3

1. Portland (Tualatin) Oregon
2. Comcast - Cable
3. 5826 kbps down - 354 kbps up
4. cable modem - motorola Surfboard SB5120
5. RT31P2
6. Modem-- Linksys WRT54G---->Vonage Adapter
7. Issue you are experiencing ie dropped calls, choppy audio etc

Test Results:
Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 2059712 bps
Upload speed: 363448 bps
Quality of service: 66 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 234 ms
Average download pause: 17 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 103 ms
Average round trip time to server: 118 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 4.0 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.8 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.2 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 6
Estimated MOS score: 3.7

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 06, 2006 Posts: 3

trekologer, I ran the ping test as your stated. Score ranged from 29ms - 38ms. Never fluctuated more than 8ms from line to line.

shawn

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

You have moderately high pauses and round trip times, but nothing that really sticks out.

Does it always take a few minutes for the problem to occur, or does it simply happen once every few minutes, more or less at random?

Is there a cordless phone in the picture here? If so, what type?

One thing that does stand out is that your download speed is a far cry from what you report it should be. Any clues on that?