VOIP & Hughesnet - advice/help?

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 26, 2006 Posts: 3

I've read the archives--discovered it's a bad idea as a rule. Still, I'm willing to pay extra for it if one of the larger dishes (.98 or .72) from Hughesnet will help, or anything else. I'm currently on a .72 dish, their newest reciever (HN7000S), the midrange plan (the next hightest up doesn't promise any better upload speed, only slightly faster download for $10 more/month, so don't need it ?). Any other VOIP/satellite that really does work? Thanks!!!
Here are my advanced test results:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1072040 bps
Upload speed: 120184 bps
Quality of service: 96 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 99 ms
Average download pause: 22 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 1397 ms
Average round trip time to server: 2079 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 301.2 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 13.0 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 1.8 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.8 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 2
Estimated MOS score: 3.2

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

The issue is not with dish size, which would affect your signal to noise ratio. The issue is with delay times, and the problem is clearly indicated in your Voip test round trip times. All satellite systems have this problem.

I've only seen one report in the forum of acceptible results. As you would expect, acceptible is a matter of opinion and need. This particular poster was in a location where nothing else would work for phone service, and he only needed one-way communication for the most part. Even so, I was surprised that it worked at all.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 26, 2006 Posts: 3

I can even live with (sort of!) the delay but the packet loss and jitter (I assume that's what causes the bad sound quality in addition?) are another matter...can't have an actual conversation much less work.
Like someone I noted in the archives, I work from home and use a Dictaphone which requires multiple keypresses to access that data I need...9/10 times the keypresses aren't transmitted accurately enough to work the computer on the other end of the phone...
It's a long story, but while we CAN get landline service here, our baby Bell company wants almost $3000 for that...so if it's at all possible, I'd really like to make Voip with the satellite internet work...
Thanks!
-lava

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:35 am Post subject:

Two things to try. 1) try using the lowest bandwidth setting (30kbps). Also, call up tech support and see if you can get them to change the packet sizes. Not sure how Hugesnet handles their traffic, but you might want to have Vonage try setting the packet size smaller or larger than the default. I'd assume smaller packets might work better, but it's pure speculation. I'm still screwing around with trying to squeeze Voip over CDMA's EVDO. Similar situation, plenty of bandwidth, but plenty of latency (lag time)

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 26, 2006 Posts: 3

I did try both of these <G>. Maybe I didn't go far enough on the packet size? What numbers would you try?
Thanks.
-lava

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:40 am Post subject:

I'm not sure what all of the available Vonage packet sizes are... I believe their default is "20", with smaller being "10" and higher being "30", but it's been awhile since I've spoken with Vonage's tech support.