Voice deteriorates drastically when using Internet

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 16

I have had Vonage for about a month. If I don't use the Internet at all, I get good voice quality. If I use the Internet (not downloading, just surfing the web) the voice quality becomes choppy and drops a lot during the Internet activity. It might even disconnect the call. As soon as the Internet activity stops (ie.: finsihed loading a page and doing nothing else), voice returns to normal. I have reduced bandwidth from Best to Normal with no significant improvement.

ISP provider is Telus (1.5 Mbps), location Vancouver, BC, Canada. The modem is brand new (old one died a few days ago) Thompson SpeedTouch 516 V6 going to a Linksys WRT54G V1.1 with Firmware V4.30.5 and D-Link VTA-VC. I have a 5.8Ghz Panasonic cordless phone with 3 remote units in the house, no in-wall wiring for phones. My main computer is hard wired to the Linksys wireless router and there are 3 laptops connected by Wi-Fi (G). Any Internet activity from any computer causes the problem. I registered the VTA-VC MAC address with Telus and connected it directly to the Internet modem: great Voip. Of course, I don't get any Internet for the computers that way and they can't interfere!

I did the Vonage speed test and another one at testyourvoip.com with following results:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 1277984 bps
Upload speed: 359648 bps
Quality of service: 76 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 503 ms
Average download pause: 9 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 91 ms
Average round trip time to server: 92 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 17.1 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.2 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported Voip lines: 6
Estimated MOS score: 3.

==================================
MOS Analysis From You TO Boston

Media Quality
MOS 4.3 / 5.0
(Best with G.711 is 4.4)

Degradation Sources
Codec
0.58 86.1%
Latency
0.00 0.0%
Packet Discards
0.09 13.9%
Packet Loss
0.00 0.0%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 183 ms
Packet Discards 0.4%
Packet Loss 0.0%
Loss Periods Min: 20 ms
Avg: 20 ms
Max: 20 ms
Random Loss

Jitter Min: 0 ms
Avg: 5 ms
Max: 17 ms

Signaling Quality
Post-Dial Delay 125 ms
Call Setup Time 140 ms
Media Delay 312 ms

MOS Analysis FROM Boston To You

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

Degradation Sources
Codec
0.57 96.8%
Latency
0.00 0.0%
Packet Discards
0.02 3.2%
Packet Loss
0.00 0.0%

Codec G.711 (PCM at 64kbps,
20ms RTP payload,
80kbps IP BW)
Round-Trip
Latency 183 ms
Packet Discards 0.1%
Packet Loss 0.0%
Loss Periods Min: 20 ms
Avg: 20 ms
Max: 20 ms
Random Loss

Jitter Min: 4 ms
Avg: 6 ms
Max: 27 ms

Signaling Quality
Post-Pickup Delay 147 ms
Call Setup Time 161 ms
Media Delay 179 ms

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 9

Had to read up on your router before replying but if you look at page 52 and 53 of your manual you will find a topic about App and Game QOS - Quality of Service. You can place your Voip box in the highest piority and when you get or make a call the router will take away from the computer to feed the Voip box. Give that a try, your upload is about 386 kbps which is not a whole lot for surfing and talking. You will have to have your modem then router and then Voip box in order for the QOS to work.

Posts: 64 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 24, 2006 Posts: 64

QOS tweak in previous reply is a good idea if you want to maintain the current setup.

It might also be worth trying:

Cable MoDem > Telephone Adapter > Router

instead of

Cable MoDem > Router > Telephone Adapter

This (possibly) causes other issues, but at least the TA can reserve the bandwidth it needs. Worth a try, anyway.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 16

Thanks! Turning on QoS did make a difference. It's not 100% but I can surf the net with much less interference on the Voip. It still chokes when the page to load has lots of graphics, but not on the others. So it's going in the right direction!

I would place the Voip box first but the Dlink VTA-VA has only 1 cat5 input and no output to got to the router.

The problem with the voice being distorted also happens on the download side, when people are talking to me, and the download speed is 1300kbps... I understand that QoS only works on upload is that correct (there is only an upload speed listed in the Linksys, no download)?

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 9

Check your manual for more info in concern to that, but one thing you might want to try is DMZ'ing the ip address for the Voip Adapter and see if that helps at all, but keep the QOS running as well.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 17, 2005 Posts: 9

Tried everything, port forwarding, MTU timing, Qos, etc. Nothing worked. If you have an extremely busy home network or several computers and use a P2P or online gaming this is what worked for me.

This is an Email I sent to Vonage customer svc to advise them of the fix I found.

http://www.amazon.com/Hawking-Technology-HBB1-Broadband-Booster/dp/B0009PLO0Q/sr=8-1/qid=1168037647/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-6694753-6421248?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

I like a lot of folks have been working with bad quality issues for a while with my router. I talked with a couple of folks at work that were also having issues and this item listed above seems to have solved all of our quality issues. No more messing with Qos, port forwarding and MTU settings. This thing is litterally plug and play.

On my network I have 360kbps of uplink speed but with multiple computers, online gaming and P2P programs the choppy audio was present especially with P2P such as Bittorrent, Azerus. This little $70 gadget works. As a stockholder in your company I would highly recommend that you list this for anyone having audio problems with outgoing voice.

The above item solved all of my audio quality items and seems to have also worked for my friends at work having issues with both Vonage and Skype.

Here is some of the comments concerning Voip and this broadband booster on the Amazon reviewer rating.

I've had the HBB1 for about a month now and it did more than just solve my problem! My Voip quality improved significantly even with all 3 computers simultaneously connected to the internet. It may not have "boosted" my uplink speed by 400% as advertised but it did what I needed it to do. It's cool when callers comment how clear we sound, especially for a free Voip service like Skype. I also noticed that my other internet applications run smoother. Set up was fool proof and literally took no more than 5 min to get it up and running. The bright blue LED confirms that the unit is connected correctly and packet management is working. Although no adjustment is necessary right out of the box, the GUI was a nice option to have as it shows your up/down stream speed, modem and router IP addresses and it gives you access to a few other manual adjustments. An average user wouldn't have to mess with it though.

For What its worth

Pete

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 9

I have checked out reviews for the Hawking Broadband Booster on Cnet and other review sites and have found the same results that people were pleased with the performance of the device. I just wish they didn't say that it boosts your upload speed 400%. All this device is doing is QOS automatically with making Voip a priority for your upload. I would certainly like to try it out, but the only downfall to the device is, it can only work with what the modem is giving it and if the squirrel in the backyard has eaten your drop or you have 10 splitters before your modem, you have to resolve that first.

Looking to see if l can get one.

Have fun!!

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 16

Thanks everyone for the help!

I think I have solved most of my problem. Telus kept telling me I should upgrade to their higher bandwidth plan, so I did. My download speed doubles but my upload speed remained almost identical. I still had major problems with Vonage.

I then switched to Shaw. The upload speed doubled from the Telus higher speed plan, the upload speed remained about the same. Quality improved very slightly but still major problems.

I continued tweaking the QoS in the WRT54G and I eventually hit a setting which sloved 95% of the problems I had. I have posted a picture of the settings here.

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 16

I had ordered a Hawking HBB1 locally (cheaper than on eBay) and received it today. I removed the QoS settings from the Linksys router and placed the HBB1 between the modem and the router. At first everything seemed to work fine. The blue light came on steady every time there was a Voip and I didn't have any voice degradation on my first call.

However, the second call was barely audible, lot of breaking-up, distortion, choppiness. I called back twice to see if I could get a better connection, no improvement. I turned the Linksys QoS back on while also leaving the HBB1 in line, no improvement. I then removed the HBB1 and called back the same number (with Linksys QoS still on): no problem, perfect conversation!

I know this is really not an extensive test and I am planning to do more. I am going to upgrade the firmware (v.1.1.0 to v1.2.0) and do more testing. However, first quick test does not look promising! I am sure glad I was able to get good QoS settings for the Linksys!!!

Posts: 16 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 16

After upgrading the firmware, HBB1 seems to work OK but not any better than the QoS optimization in the Linksys router. Reviewers said it was better than Router QoS but I do not see that in my setting. Perhaps it depends on each individual case. Anyway, for me the Linksys QoS seems to be doing the trick so I am not going to use the HBB1.