Strange intermittent quality problem.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 10

Ok, I tried the search -- but not knowing exactly how to describe it I wasn't having any luck.

I have the PAP2 adapter running behind a Linksys WRT54G which is connected to my cable. The speed test rates my connection at T2 and everything looks fine.

For the most part, my calls sound great and I have no complaints. It seems light years above what I was getting using the old Cisco ATA-186(168?) adapter -- but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Anyways, the problem. Seemingly randomlly during a call I hear sort of a quick DTMF beep immediately followed by about a second where the other person fades out with a little bit of static noise. It immediatley returns, they don't hear anything out of ordinary, and in fact continue to hear me speak throughout the whole incident.

It doesn't sound like the normal "I ran out of bandwith" effect (I used to do Vonage on a crappy DSL line, so I know what that's like) and it doesn't seem to be tied to any network congestion. I can be running streaming audio, web browsing, sending large files, and downloading at crazy speeds without the problem occuring -- but on another call it may happen once every 3 minutes even though my computer is turned off.

It's not happening often enough to either be troublesome or give me a good sampling to try and narrow down and diagnose the problem myself, but it is annoying. Any suggestions on either what to try or anything to do to help get more usefull information next time it happens?

Thanks!

Posts: 36

yarnia wrote:

Ok, I tried the search -- but not knowing exactly how to describe it I wasn't having any luck.

I have the PAP2 adapter running behind a Linksys WRT54G which is connected to my cable. The speed test rates my connection at T2 and everything looks fine.

For the most part, my calls sound great and I have no complaints. It seems light years above what I was getting using the old Cisco ATA-186(168?) adapter -- but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Anyways, the problem. Seemingly randomlly during a call I hear sort of a quick DTMF beep immediately followed by about a second where the other person fades out with a little bit of static noise. It immediatley returns, they don't hear anything out of ordinary, and in fact continue to hear me speak throughout the whole incident.

It doesn't sound like the normal "I ran out of bandwith" effect (I used to do Vonage on a crappy DSL line, so I know what that's like) and it doesn't seem to be tied to any network congestion. I can be running streaming audio, web browsing, sending large files, and downloading at crazy speeds without the problem occuring -- but on another call it may happen once every 3 minutes even though my computer is turned off.

It's not happening often enough to either be troublesome or give me a good sampling to try and narrow down and diagnose the problem myself, but it is annoying. Any suggestions on either what to try or anything to do to help get more usefull information next time it happens?

Thanks!

what you're experiencing is basically interference in the 2.4GHz frequency.
Remember your router uses 2.4 GHz, probably your phone, microwave and remember many truckers have microwave transmitters on their trucks, news trucks, cellular towers use them so it's crowded.
I use a 900 MHz phone to try and reduce these problems. Our house has loads of wireless devices, including our Vonage phone which is hooked to a wireless access point, and one phone to the wireless phone jacks.
It happens from time to time.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 10

My Vonage line is connected to a wired phone. Since everything is wired, where would the interference happen? Plus my router is MAC locked, so I know it's not some neighbor enjoying my internet and temporarily bringing things to a halt.

Posts: 227 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Dec 10, 2004 Posts: 227

Yarnia,
Search for DTMF. What you experience is a by product of the nature of Voip. It has been discussed here a number of times. There is really nothing you can do about it. It usually happens (for me) when my wife or another female produces a frequency high enough it sets off the tone. You should have no problem finding info.

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 04, 2005 Posts: 12

yarnia wrote:

Anyways, the problem. Seemingly randomlly during a call I hear sort of a quick DTMF beep immediately followed by about a second where the other person fades out with a little bit of static noise. It immediatley returns, they don't hear anything out of ordinary, and in fact continue to hear me speak throughout the whole incident.

You are hearing the "Call Waiting w/Caller ID" tones. If you have a "Call Waiting w/Caller ID" capable phone you would be able to look at its display right after hearing that "static" and see the name of the person trying to call you.

If you find that the tones are more bother than they are worth you can disable Call Waiting on a per call basis by dialing *67 before a call. You can disable Call Waiting alltogether by logging into your Vonage Dashboard, clicking on the Features tab, and heading under the "Call Waiting" section.

Hope this helps.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 01, 2005 Posts: 10

No offense, but I'm not that dumb.

It's not the Call Waiting / Caller ID info.

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:55 am Post subject:

heh, yeah, bbtrumpetguy hit the nail on the head.
here's one of a few threads for your reading pleasure:
http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic2161.html

Posts: 5 · New Forum Member Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 5

I had this same problem with my CELL SOCKET which converts a cell phone to connect to a POTS phone. Like the ATA is converting the IP stream over Ethernet to POTS. They fixed it with a firmware update that lowered the sensitivity of the system to DTMF tones.

I'm finding that if Vonage works great its a wonderful service. If it doesn't work support is limited and you better call because you won't get an email back. ;^)

Anyone see a fix for this? Very Happy