BitTorrent

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 3

I'm having a hell of a time trying to get Vonage to work at the some time I'm doing a BitTorrent transfer. I've tried putting the voice terminal (Motorola VT1005V) before my router (Linksys WRT54G) as well as behind my router and using the routers QOS feature. Both ways I get the same results... I can hear the caller fine but they always complain about me breaking up.

This is becoming a real hassle, every time my phone rings I have to run to my computer and stop any torrents that are running. I've done a lot of research and most people seem to thing it's a problem that can be resolved by limiting torrent uploads but I already have mine limited to 15 kB/s and that doesn't help at all. I'm ready to go out and buy a real QOS router (Cisco 831 Ethernet Router) but it's over $400 and I'd like to first make sure there are no other alternatives and secondly would like to hear some opinions on whether this will solve the problem.

Thanks for any feedback or suggestions.

Andrew

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 6

If you have a cable modem, uncap it. If you ISP will let you. Then you should not have a problem. What is your download/upload speed??

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks for the tip, I think you're correct in your assesment. I just did a speed test, the results were 5908 kbps / 134 kbps. It definately appears that my uploads are being capped. The question is how to get it uncapped? With this information I'm assuming that no matter how good of a router I get it's not going to make a difference.

Andrew

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 09, 2004 Posts: 1

No ISP will "allow" you uncap your modem. Its called theft of services if your caught, and you will be caught. Besides that, most ISPs push new config files to your modem so frequently that even if you took the time to setup a tftp server to uncap you'd be right back to the same speed within a short time. Thats best case senerio, but whats likely to happen is you lose your service as soon as they catch you.

Anywho, as far as your problem with others hearing stutter is your bandwidth up speed. For decent quality sound you need approx. 90kbs both ways. Your only options would be:

1) Pay for a service upgrade from your ISP
2) Only talk when you don't have uploads going on
3) Be a leech and set your uploads to around 3KBs (~30kbs)
4) find a middle ground and set the phone quality to below the default quality.

I'm not trying to be mean, only helpful. Its looks like your package from the ISP is about a 5MB/128KB line. The 5MB is pretty nice, but the 128 is pretty sub-par, at least for my area that offers 256KB upload on there base package. Though we do have, for another $15, the option to get 768KB. Hope this helps.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 05, 2004 Posts: 3

Thanks to everyone who posted here to help me out. I finally got to the bottom of what was happening. I discovered that my ISP (Optonline) capped me for bandwidth abuse. Aparently the almost constant Bittorrent activity on my node raised a red flag and my ISP capped me to "protect the integrity of the network". Anyway, I called my Optonline to ask them to upcap me (which they did) and the tech gave me some tips on how not to get capped again like not uploading 24x7 or at full speed. Now I'm using the Azureuz Bittorrent client with a great plug-in called Speed Scheduler which allows me to limit my upload speeds during the day (when there's a lot of activity on the network) and increase them at night. I also have it configured to pause my transfers every so often so they aren't running constantly. I've been running Bittorrent this way for the past few days this way and so far so good, I haven't been re-capped yet (knock on wood). I just did a speed test and my results are much improved: 9050 kbps / 933 kbps.

Thanks again,

agaraffa

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 16, 2006 Posts: 1

Since adding Vonage my BT speeds have mostly gone to zero. Bandwidth test showed 2.78mbps down and 300kbps up. Sometimes I can restart a stopped torrent and get a great rate, but it doesn't go very long. There are times (most of the time, actually) when I have several torrents running, they are not done, they have 0 KB/s download rate and no peers listed by the client, but I look at the torrent posting and it shows 5 or 10 or 20 seeders. And I don't see myself among the leechers. Yet the torrent in question has the full-on green triangle. Could be a complete coincidence, but I'm sure I never saw this scenario before the Vonage thing. Any thoughts on troubleshooting?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 11

I use BitTorrent and haven't had that problem at all. the only one I've had is that if I have BitTorrent uploading at a max speed (just 256 kbps for my crappy Charter cable modem), I have to lower it or turn it off or the other person on the phone cannot hear me very well.

It's just one of the few disadvantages of Vonage, but one that I happily accept considering it is a great service overall.

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2006 1:49 pm Post subject:

TonyC9898 wrote:

I use BitTorrent and haven't had that problem at all. the only one I've had is that if I have BitTorrent uploading at a max speed (just 256 kbps for my crappy Charter cable modem), I have to lower it or turn it off or the other person on the phone cannot hear me very well.

It's just one of the few disadvantages of Vonage, but one that I happily accept considering it is a great service overall.

If you have a Vonage router, I can understand why. If you have another router that can do good QoS, this should not be an issue.

I run BitTorrent on my primary PC, and working QoS has allowed me to leave it uncapped. When I pick up the Vonage line, the router (WRT54G with HyperWRT Tofu aftermarket firmware) just prioritizes the packets for Vonage and it works great. No complaints on the other end about audio quality any more.

I learned a few things along the way, here's a QoS tutorial I worked up that might help...

http://vonage.nmhoy.net/qos.html