One way audio problem? NAT & firewall? Other?

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 4

Just started with Vonage after other voip's.

I'm already getting some one way audio where I can hear the person on the other end but they can't hear me. Is there a typical reason for this?

I have a Comcast cable connection going through a good Motorola cable modem, then directly into the Motorola VT2142. I go out of the 2142 to a Belkin wireless router and then into my computer.

I was wondering if the fact that I have firewall and NAT active on the 2142 and another firewall on the Belkin router could be be impeding throughput. If I turned NAT and firewall off on the 2142, my computer would still be protected by the Belkin's firewall. Internet works fine, by the way.

Any suggestions about the one-way audio issue?

Thanks

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

Turn your firewall off on the Belkin. They tend to block Voip traffic with it turned on because of sensitivity to hackers.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 4

taylor2767 wrote:

Turn your firewall off on the Belkin. They tend to block Voip traffic with it turned on because of sensitivity to hackers.

How can the Belkin be blocking Voip traffic if it isn't between the internet and the Vonage adapter? The traffic comes right into the VT2142 and my phone is plugged into it. The Belkin only controls what comes through the VT2142, right?

Posts: 52 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 52

Alright, it sounds like your configuration is modem -> phone adapter -> Router -> Computer(s)

In this case the router would not affect the traffic coming to the phone adapter. Since you can hear the person, and sometimes they can't hear your. The voice data you send out is goverened by the upload speed, and upload speed is usually lower than the download speed. Voip without the bandwidth saver feature needs about 90 Kbps of upload for audio transmit. The problem could be that something is taking up bandwidth, from the computer(s), and interupting your voice uploads on the Voip.

Posts: 533

Also, please post the information requested in the sticky at the top of this forum.

Posts: 58 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2007 Posts: 58

ALways give an Brief Description about your Network setup as well make and model no of ur devices......how the devices are connected......

1.check the upload speed and download speed
2.Check for the Latency and Packet Loss

Run Continous PING test :

Start-->Run-->cmd-->ping -t www.yahoo.com-->Press ctrl+c in the Keyboard to stop the test.....

give the PING statistics

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 4

Restating question with full info:

Getting one-way audio (they cannot hear me) and sometimes awful connection quality. Please check info below and offer suggestions on what I can do to improve service.

I have a Comcast cable connection going through a good Motorola SB5120 cable modem, then directly into the Motorola VT2142. I go out of the 2142 to a Belkin wireless router and then into my computer. Note that the Belkin router is BEHIND the VT2142.

Ping Test: bytes= 32 time= 94 ms TTL= 51
with a fair number of "request timed out"

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 5798408 bps
Upload speed: 363560 bps
Quality of service: 77 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 71 ms
Average download pause: 5 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 24 ms
Average round trip time to server: 59 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 12.5 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.4 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 8.1 %
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: 3.4

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

You have huge packet loss on the uplink. Please plug the computer directly into the VT2142 and re-run the test. If you get similar results, plug directly into the modem and re-run again.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 4

Here are some new numbers. This 87% QOS is the lowest that I have had since I reconfigured my cable connection. Most tests put me in the 90's. The coaxial cable to my cable modem was going through a "splitter" and I managed to bypass it and go directly to the feed from outside. The packet loss disappeared and the QOS went way up. The jitter also dropped.

Now, the only question is whether or not the drop-outs I experienced on my $14.95 Cordia line would still be there. With the numbers the way they were in my last post, Vonage was clearly worse than both Cordia and Broadvoice. Not sure it's worth paying almost twice as much for Vonage, at this point.

Thanks for the help.

Speed test statistics

---------------------

Download speed: 6797976 bps

Upload speed: 356688 bps

Quality of service: 87 %

Download test type: socket

Upload test type: socket

Maximum download pause: 146 ms

Average download pause: 2 ms

Minimum round trip time to server: 31 ms

Average round trip time to server: 139 ms

Voip test statistics

--------------------

Jitter: you --> server: 2.5 ms

Jitter: server --> you: 8.3 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: 3.9

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

GWBridge wrote:

Now, the only question is whether or not the drop-outs I experienced on my $14.95 Cordia line would still be there. With the numbers the way they were in my last post, Vonage was clearly worse than both Cordia and Broadvoice. Not sure it's worth paying almost twice as much for Vonage, at this point.

Good questions, but do I gather that the Vonage quality is OK now that you've fixed the cable problem?