Garbled Audio - Even With New QOS Router

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Alright,

Ever since Ive had Vonage Ive had intermittent problems with incoming audio being garbled. Usually it can be solved by unplugging my other PCs from the router. Recently i purchased a WRT54G Linksys router with QOS management. Right now I have my PCs set as low priority and the Vonage box as high priority. However, Im still getting garbled audio!

I called Vonage to confirm that there is no problems with my adapter or on their end.

To me the problem seems simply. Not enough bandwith. However, I can get crystal clear calls using Skype. No bandwith problems with Skype at all. Im about ready to ditch Vonage all together with Skypes new $15, unlimited calling for a year plan.

Can anyone help get my phone quality out of the toliet?

EDIT:

Also, I have 1mbps down and 384kbps up.

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Also, I just ran the speed tests.

These are my results at first:

My Results
Download 690,056 bps
Upload 307,104 bps
QOS 83%
RTT 263 ms
MaxPause 60 ms

When giving this PC high priority I get about 200 more kbps, and my QOS rating is around 95%...

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:19 pm Post subject:

You may want to try lowering the bandwidth for Vonage using the "bandwidth saver" feature. I don't know a lot about Skype, but they may be using a lower-bandwidth codec than Vonage, and lowering Vonage to the 50k or 30k quality rather than using the default 90kbps might do the trick for you.

It looks like Vonage wants about 10% of your download bandwidth, and about 33% of your upload. QoS can help with the upload. Unfortunately, you are not going to get QoS inbound (data coming to you). A more detailed explanation of why not, if you are interested, can be found on my self-help pages: http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html

Lowering that to about 5-6% of your download (50k), though, might help. That keeps more bandwidth free for other services, and lowers (but does not eliminate) the chances of collision.

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Thanks for the reply.

I already have the "Bandwith Saver" set to 30kbps.

I wish I had known QOS only worked one direction before purchasing the router Evil or Very Mad

Another question. If it does only work in one direction, why do I lose about 200kbps on my download speed when I have QOS enabled?

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:38 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I wish I had known QOS only worked one direction before purchasing the router

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't know that, and as a result expectations are far higher than they should be.

Some routers do allow download throttling, which is a sort of poor man's QoS, but those routers can only throw away or delay packets that have already been sent through the bottleneck (the modem). With some applications, like FTP and HTTP downloads, though, this can be surprisingly effective as a crude QoS method (though very crude and inefficient). With others, like streaming media or P2P, it can actually cause an increase in traffic and problems due to the large number of retry requests.

Quote:

Another question. If it does only work in one direction, why do I lose about 200kbps on my download speed when I have QOS enabled?

Not sure. If you have any sort of throttling set on, be sure to try disabling it. What version of WRT54G do you have? If it is a V4 or lower (serial number starting in CDFA or lower), you may be able to get some performance improvements by loading aftermarket firmware - if it is, let me know and I can give you some recommendations.

If it is a V5 or above (CDFB or higher), you should at least go to the Linksys web site and make sure you have the very latest firmware for it.

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Version 5 of course... Confused

Downloading firemware update now.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 19, 2006 Posts: 3

BubbaBob wrote:

Alright,

Ever since Ive had Vonage Ive had intermittent problems with incoming audio being garbled. Usually it can be solved by unplugging my other PCs from the router. Recently i purchased a WRT54G Linksys router with QOS management. Right now I have my PCs set as low priority and the Vonage box as high priority. However, Im still getting garbled audio!

I called Vonage to confirm that there is no problems with my adapter or on their end.

To me the problem seems simply. Not enough bandwith. However, I can get crystal clear calls using Skype. No bandwith problems with Skype at all. Im about ready to ditch Vonage all together with Skypes new $15, unlimited calling for a year plan.

Can anyone help get my phone quality out of the toliet?

EDIT:

Also, I have 1mbps down and 384kbps up.

I posted this in another topic but thought I would post it here for you as well. You might want to look into one of these devices that are designed to optimize high priority outbound traffic. Linksys and Hawking Tech make a stand alone device that provides Qos for Voip, gaming, video and other sensitive traffic. It has saved my Voip and I have read many other good things from different sites. You simply install it between your modem and router. There is no configuration necessary. I am using the one from Hawking Tech.

Hawking broadband booster

Linksys Network Optimizer

I tried using the Qos that came on the linksys router and even tried some of the 3rd party firmware and this has helped me more than anything. A co-worker of mine has had the same success.

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Thank you for the reply.

However, its not the outbound traffic that's the problem. Do they do anything for inbound? Wink

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 10:20 pm Post subject:

I have never tried one myself, but I can say with pretty high confidence that they would not.

Nothing is going to overcome the fact that you can only control inbound packets after they have been through the bottleneck. Unfortunately.

Posts: 59 · Full Forum Member Joined: Feb 09, 2005 Posts: 59

Thanks Nate.

Im fed up with this crap. Im on hold with my cable company right now and will call Vonage next. Maybe my cable modem or Vonage box is toast? Who knows..

BTW, your name sounds familar... Are you a regular at any other tech forums?