30 second answer delay

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 19, 2005 Posts: 19

I am currently experiencing a 30 second answer delay. The phone rings and after I pick up the receiver, it takes 30 seconds before a connection is established with the caller. How can this delay be eliminated?

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

Please post the technical details listed in the sticky message at the top of the forum. Once you finally make a phone connection, how is the service? Any more delays?

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 19, 2005 Posts: 19

Steve -

Thanks for your reply. Here is the data you requested:
Location: Raleigh, NC
ISP: Time Warner Cable - RoadRunner
Upload 353,488 bps, Download 4,287,872 bps
Modem: Surfboard SB4100 cable modem
Vonage Adapter: Linksys WRTP54G
Setup: Modem->Vonage Adapter->PC

When receiving a call, there is a 30 second delay after I pick up the phone receiver before I am able to speak to the person calling. The person calling hears the ringing stop, but can't hear me saying "Hello" until the 30 seconds passes by.

When making a call, it sometimes takes two of more attempts to get the call to go through. You can hear the "beeping" of the number being sent, but no connection is made for awhile.

These problems started about a month ago. Prior to that, the service was fine.

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 4287872 bps
Upload speed: 353488 bps
Quality of service: 71 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 112 ms
Average download pause: 3 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 24 ms
Average round trip time to server: 27 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 14.0 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 13.9 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.1 %
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: 3.7

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 19, 2005 Posts: 19

Additional information not included in earlier post: Once the connection with the caller is made, the quality of the communication seems fine.

One additional observation: I have an answering machine on my phone line. I also have Vonage programed to roll calls to my cell phone if the incoming call is not answered in 30 seconds. Before this problem started, the answering machine would pick up before the 30 seconds, so it was rare any call would roll to the cell phone. However, since the problem started, about half of the incoming calls would go to the cell phone before I got a ring on my regular phone. I have since re-programed Vonage to not roll to the cell phone until 35 seconds and may have to go higher for the answering machine to pick up first (after three rings).

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

Your test numbers are fine. I'm afraid that this is an issue that only Vonage customer service will be able to address. One point, though. If a call does roll to Vonage voice mail, does the caller hear an immediate response from the answering system?

Posts: 19 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 19, 2005 Posts: 19

Steve -

When the call rolls to my cell phone, I seem to connect with the caller as soon as I answer the cell phone. I don't have a lot of data points on this occurance.

Posts: 4751 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4751

Hmm. You're using call forwarding to your cell phone? What happens if you turn that off?

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

I would disconnect the answering machine and also use simulring.

Posts: 87 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 26, 2006 Posts: 87

just a few questions:

Is the phone connected directly to the phone port on the Vonage device with out any splitters or anything?

Have you tried a different phone or phone cord. On some occasions the device could be having an issue recognizing the off_hook voltage when you pick up the phone.

the outgoing call issue that you have is it a delay in the dialtone or when you dial out nothing really happens

Posts: 203 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Mar 04, 2006 Posts: 203

What you are experiencing is know as media cut-through delay. It is partly caused by NAT traversal. When a VoIP adapter sits behind a router preforming or the ATA itself preforms NAT (network address translation), the router negotiates the ports that will be used by the ATA for that session. To avoid "conflicts" between what the ATA wants to use and what the router has negotiated, a series of techniques are to identify which ports are actually in use.

When you make or receive a call, your audio traffic is analyzed to acquire this information. The delay you are experiencing is associated with the time it initially takes to receive that traffic and obtain enough information which will then be used for the duration of the call.

That is only part of it. What actually makes the delay noticeable is that the various techniques used by the ATA to enhance quality (i.e. echo cancellation, jitter buffer, etc.) must also sample that traffic delaying even more.

Steve48 is correct only Vonage Tech Support can help you. Settings within your ATA need to be changed.