Slow internet speeds... adjusting Vonage settings?

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 11, 2006 Posts: 7

I have a Linksys RTP 300 Vonage box, a Motorola SB5101 cable modem from Comcast, and an Apple Airport Extreme (the older round version) wireless router. I've had this setup for about a year, and it has mostly worked fine. (Computer is a PowerMac G4, if that's relevant.)

In the last month or two, I've occasionally had really, really slow internet speeds. Rebooting the modem, VOIP box and router would fix things, but then they would inexplicably slow down again. Sometimes the speed is fine... other times, definitely not.

I called Comcast, and they sent a guy out. When he connected my computer directly to the modem, the speed was fine, so he said that it was either the router, the Vonage box, or both that were slowing things down, and that I could adjust the settings to improve my speed. Since it was not a Comcast problem, he of course couldn't help me actually DO that.

So I tried asking about this on the Apple support forums and got no help at all, so now I'm here. Rolling Eyes

Here are the results of the speed test:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 150528 bps
Upload speed: 364952 bps
Quality of service: 17 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 1726 ms
Average download pause: 114 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 21 ms
Average round trip time to server: 62 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 5.0 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 7.8 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.1 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 1.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 2
Estimated MOS score: 3.6

Can anyone help me try to figure out how to fix this? I only have one Vonage line (had a fax line a while ago, but that never worked reliably, so gave up on it!), and I haven't noticed any quality issues on the phone line lately.

Many thanks for any help!

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

eharty wrote:

I have a Linksys RTP 300 Vonage box, a Motorola SB5101 cable modem from Comcast, and an Apple Airport Extreme (the older round version) wireless router. I've had this setup for about a year, and it has mostly worked fine. (Computer is a PowerMac G4, if that's relevant.)

When you say that "it has mostly worked fine" are you talking about consistent upload and download speeds far superior to your 150 kbps download speed on your test? I've had comcast before and their speeds have never been so low for me.

2 things come to mind.

1. If your system worked fine in the past year, my gut feeling tells me that either your airport or your rtp300 is going bad. Exactly how is your setup anyway? Is it, SB5101 -> rtp300 -. Airport -> G4? You can deductively isolate the problem by removing your rtp300 first from your system and see if the speeds are good and then removing your airport and using only the rtp300 etc. If your system greatly improves with one of them out, then you can tell which one is the culprit. I think you will need a PC with the rtp300 or can you connect a MAC to it? I'm not sure, I'm not a mac guy.

2. Could there be a bandwidth sucking device on your system i.e. are there any p2p software like bittorent or something of that nature?

Is your airport secured or is it open so that your neighbors can hog up your bandwidth?

Lastly, when the last time you scanned for viruses and spyware? Also, did you add any software to your G4 lately? Such as a new firewall etc?

Just some things to think about.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 11, 2006 Posts: 7

The "mostly working fine" was mostly in reference to the Vonage performance. I have occasionally had some static on the line and I had a devil of a time with the fax line, but from what I recall reading on this forum at the time, I wasn't the only one! Wink

Setup is SB5101 > RTP 300 > wireless router. The computer is connected wirelessly.

Good thought on isolating the problem to the router or the rtp300 -- I haven't tried that yet. I can at least try the router without the rtp300; don't know if it will work the other way.

The wireless network is password protected and I have a firewall... no p2p programs running. I do also have a Tivo that connects to the network for updates, but otherwise, it's just this desktop computer or my laptop. Both suffer the same performance issues and both are scanned for viruses every time they're powered up. Haven't made any major software/OS upgrades recently.

Posts: 100 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Jan 13, 2007 Posts: 100

can you post the readings when the pc is directly connected to your modem?

try to connect the airport to modem,upgrade firmware on it and set qos if any.

Jay Very Happy

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 11, 2006 Posts: 12

modern macs (ie anything with an ethernet port) will work just fine on an rtp300 or any ethernet router.

Posts: 41 · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:20 pm Post subject:

i beleave going as sb5101->wireless router->rtp300 would be the best way as it wont cause any internet issues by the vonage and also u can escape all the DNS issues with vonage.......

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 11, 2006 Posts: 7

OK, here's the result of the speed test with just the rtp300 hooked up. (So it's cable modem> rtp300>computer)

The "quality of service" still doesn't look terribly good, but the speed is definitely better.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 14212984 bps
Upload speed: 364256 bps
Quality of service: 30 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 41 ms
Average download pause: 1 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 20 ms
Average round trip time to server: 42 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 4.8 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: 3.9

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

as far as I could tell, I cannot see your rtp300 being the reason for the loss of speed so it rules out your rtp300.

Don't worry about the QOS on this test. The other data tells me that your connection is fine with this particular configuration.

Quote:

So it's cable modem> rtp300>computer

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 11, 2006 Posts: 7

And here's the results with just the wireless router:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 3061080 bps
Upload speed: 364440 bps
Quality of service: 97 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 35 ms
Average download pause: 4 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 18 ms
Average round trip time to server: 55 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 5.3 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.1 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: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

I don't know much about the airport stuff but it sures looks to me like the issue lies with that and not the rtp300.

Perhaps others will macs and airport routers can help here.

I can only help you diagnose the problem and if the problem resided with the rtp300 I could help but since the issue is with your airport, my knowledge is lacking in this area.

Anyone with macs that would like to help?