clicking noise despite excellent voip test stats

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2007 Posts: 3

On most, but not all, calls, I get random clicks and pops in the background. This is true even if I connect a wired phone directly to my Motorola adapter. I've tried two different wired phones with two different cords, so I am pretty sure it is not my phones or wiring. Some calls are fine.

The voice quality is uniformly good; it is just the clicking and popping noises that bother. What can I do to eliminate the noises?

Voip test stats vary with time of day, but the often look quite good, and I still get the noise immediately after running this good a test.

Other test info: removing my Belkin router and connecting directly to ISP does not fix the problem. No cordless phones are involved. No house wiring is involved.

I've tried all three bandwidth settings. No change.

1. Portland OR, USA
2. Omniwire ISP, a small-time operation that uses a commercial Verizon FIOS connection for distribution among townhouse owners in a small development.
3. see test for speeds; nominally 5 Mbps down, 4 Mbps up.
4. no modem; direct ethernet connection to ISP
5. Motorola VT2442
6. direct ethernet connection --> Belkin router ---->Vonage Adapter
7. clicks and pops despite otherwise good audio
8.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 4569288 bps
Upload speed: 2865376 bps
Quality of service: 96 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 53 ms
Average download pause: 2 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 103 ms
Average round trip time to server: 104 ms

Voip test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 2.3 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.5 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: 48
Estimated MOS score: 4.0

Any ideas?

Posts: 433 · Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject:

Try changing your bandwidth setting to a different quality. If I use 50kbps, I have the same noises that you describe. However, if I use the 30 or 90kbps setting, I don't here them at all.

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

Jg, it sounds as if you've already done some pretty good troubleshooting. Try going to your account page and changing to the other phone port. It's a shot in the dark, but ....

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2007 Posts: 3

Steve48 wrote:

Jg, it sounds as if you've already done some pretty good troubleshooting. Try going to your account page and changing to the other phone port. It's a shot in the dark, but ....

tried that several times today; the control panel just says "an error occurred. Try again later." Does this feature ever work?

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

Hmm. I've never used it myself, but others in here have reported using it.

Posts: 433 · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:06 pm Post subject:

I missed the information in your first post that said you tried all the bandwidth settings. Sorry for the worthless advice. Have you had any luck with Steve's advice? Since you are using a VT2442 I assume it is fairly new. Are you a new subscriber and is the device new? Could be a bum adapter and maybe you will have to call Vonage to get a replacement. I would try and switch to port 2 first though.

Posts: 43 · Full Forum Member Joined: Dec 27, 2006 Posts: 43

what is your living environment; is it possible there is a legacy phone somewhere in your wiring? an old line that had been in the basement, garage before you moved in? I know of a situation just like yours and that was the culprit.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 28, 2007 Posts: 3

jrsshore wrote:

what is your living environment; is it possible there is a legacy phone somewhere in your wiring? an old line that had been in the basement, garage before you moved in? I know of a situation just like yours and that was the culprit.

I get the clicking even when I bypass all the house wiring by disconnecting the house wires, and connecting either of several different corded phones directly to the Vonage adapter. So, wiring isn't an issue unless I'm very unlucky with multiple bad phones. Since those same phones worked just fine with my old POTS connection, I am confident that the clicking is coming from upstream of the Vonage adapter. That is, either the adapter or the Internet connection, or even farther up at Vonage.

Since the Internet connection tests out as very good, and others have no such clicking problem, I suspect my adapter.

Both Vonage support and another poster here in this forum have suggested that I try port 2 on my adapter, but after multiple attempts I cannot get the Vonage control panel to take this change--the web page just states that there was an error and to try again later. Other settings changes work fine.

JG

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

I suspect that you're right about it being the adapter. I'm afraid it is going to take a session with customer service to resolve the issue with you being unable to switch ports. Then, assuming that it is the adapter, what happens depends on how long you've been a customer. If the Vonage box is under warranty, they should replace it. If not, you may need to buy another or sweet talk them out of one.

Posts: 830 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 830

I used to have the clicking sound and other problems (echos etc.). I tried customer service, who reconfigured my Vonage device several times and finally the last person looked at it and said I should reset it (go back to default settings). I also put my Vonage device in front of my old router and lowered the bandwidth settings . . .and somewhere in between all of this, the clicking has ended.

At times I still get the echo but not too much anymore and no clicking . . . so go figure.