How much bandwidth does Vonage really need?

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2008 Posts: 7

I've just set up Vonage today. I have ATT DSL running at 6Mb/650Kb. The voice quality is excellent. Everything was working perfectly. I made several calls and all seems fine. So far so good for the first afternoon.....

Then I tried to dial in to my daily work meeting. The dial tone is present, but the call would not go through. I tried several numbers, but all the same. The V-portal phone adapter showed no error. I decided to reboot the phone adapter, that fixed the problem. This is worrying me .... Is this what I have to do every few hours?

I then try to understand how much bandwidth I would have left when the phone is used. I ran the speedtest at dslreports.com. Without an active call, I got 4900Mb/612Kb speed. With an active call, my speed dropped to 430Kb/520Kb. What is going on here...

My set up is DSL Modem-> V-Portal -> Netgear Router.

I know that V-Portal provides QoS for the voice traffic, but this is insane. I will have to experiment with changing the order of these boxes, but since my Netgear router does not has QoS I am not sure how things will turn out.

At least I know that V-portal QoS is not for me.

Posts: 881 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Nov 05, 2005 Posts: 881

Set at it's lowest bandwidth setting, Vonage requires 30kbps of download and upload speed. 90kbps of download and upload speed is recommended for peak performance. With your current speeds, I don't believe available bandwidth is the problem. Shut down all your networking equipment including your modem for at least a minimum of 5 minutes and place your V-Portal behind your NetGear router. Try running the speed test again during a call and before a call to see what to type of results you get.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2008 Posts: 7

Thanks for the input Darrell_G.

But what do you mean by "Set at it's lowest bandwidth setting" - Do you mean the V-Portal QoS setting? My Netgear does not have QoS.

The problem I have with Vonage is the impact it has to my download speed from 4.9Mb to 520Kb. Is there anything I can do with V-Portal QoS resolve this issue?

I have also rerranged my set up to DSL Modem -> Netgear -> V-Portal. As expected, this setup does not impede my overall speed, but now I can't guarantee my voice line.

Posts: 881 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Nov 05, 2005 Posts: 881

When you login to your web account, on the "Features" tab there is a setting for Bandwidth Saver...The lowest possible setting is 30 kbps. I was not referring to the V-Portal's QoS setting.

I don't believe there is anything you can do QoS wise with the V-Portal for it not to affect your download and upload speed when the V-Portal is in front of another router. This is a common issue with the V-Portal in that it can decrease your overall download and upload speeds. The only solution thus far is to place the V-Portal behind your primary router and use the V-Portal solely as a phone adapter...that's what I did and everything works much better that way with my setup.

As long as you're not downloading or uploading files while simultaneously using your Vonage line, you should not experience any call quality issues. If you find that you do have issues with the V-Portal behind your primary router, I would suggest getting a new router with QoS capabilities and giving your V-Portal highest priority.

Posts: 51 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 02, 2008 Posts: 51

Is that a DSL up or down speed? We cable customers get much more than that, on one side. I typically get 4-6Mbps down but only 1/10th of that up. So 90kbps isn't a huge deal but it is noticeable if you're sending a file upstream or something equally large.

Posts: 168 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 09, 2007 Posts: 168

The behavior you see with your speeds is correct. Vonage takes a percentage of your bandwidth to use for data while voice is always prioritized. This is based off of your bandwidth to the internet from the modem and not between the Vonage device and the modem (100MBps). When you are on a call, the QoS (traffic shaping) kicks in and will place voice traffic over the data which is why it will slow down (at this point the Vonage device will control throughput). Once off of a call, your normal throughout will kick back in. Remember that packets are consistenly dropped by the modem if you are pushing data quicker than the amount of bandwidth you really have.