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Posts: 156 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 30, 2005 Posts: 156

I saw this today and wonder what your thoughts may be. This unit that sells for about $70 claims to improve your VOIP and increase outgoing data traffic. Here are two links, one from the manufacturer and a press release.
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/1105/hawking_technologies_introduces
http://www.hawkingtech.com/prodSpec.php?ProdID=251

Posts: 646 · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 12:09 pm Post subject:

It looks like it just manages QoS. It won't help you at all if you get poor phone calls when nothing else is using the Internet connection.

Posts: 605 · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:15 pm Post subject:

Posts: 156 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 30, 2005 Posts: 156

I really did not intend this to be "SPAM"...sorry if you think so. I was just wondering if this is something useful in my current setup.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 3:39 pm Post subject:

If you're having QoS problems, you should stick that Motorola box ahead of your router, so it can do some bandwidth management for you.

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:22 pm Post subject:

KDWycha: seattlezoid has posted here for quite some time, I don't think this was spam.

paul248: This box is a little more than QoS, it also does traffic shaping. If you have a lot of session based transfers (email, file sharing) occurring it can actually reduce the traffic rather than the normal dropped packet/retransmission nightmare. Combined with the fact that it does this with no configuration needed it is both clever and stupid.

Clever because it will work for people who aren't able to understand how it works. Stupid because it can't know the importance of your Vonage business line versus your teenage daughter's Yahoo! Messenger voice chat.

seattlezoid: The theory behind this box is sound but it is definitely for people who have a lot happening on their home networks. If your home network isn't busy then this box won't help. If on the other hand you have file sharing, streaming video or a web server, some networked gaming, someone surfing the net and you are trying to talk on the phone then I would give it a shot.

I would agree that sticking your Motorola box out front would be a better first step if all you are trying to do is improve your Vonage calls. I used to have mine that way but the box would lock up. I have heard that has been fixed. If you try it, let me know.

Posts: 46 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 03, 2005 Posts: 46

Remember the little gadget that they shoved down our throats in tv commercials that you can eliminate your house tv antenna, plug your coax into this thing and then plug this thing into your ac outlet and get better reception?
You buy this thing and you are headed down the wrong road. Just like when you bought that other thing....
Call Zapper is another one that comes to mind...

Think about it, if something like this existed and worked as claimed, wouldn't most ISP's be buying them up to use on their own systems to improve them so they could reduce bandwidth costs? You bet!!! But they aren't.... Now you have to ask yourself why???

Posts: 646 · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 7:02 pm Post subject:

linnym: I doubt that it's completely worthless. From what I can tell, it probably uses some heuristics to determine which packets should be sent ahead of others. It doesn't give you more speed, it just manages the speed you have.

I could imagine this being useful in a house with lots of people all grabbing for bandwidth, although I'd personally rather have a device with manual settings, because I'd be able to decide for myself what gets priority.

I don't think it should be a part of an ISP's basic hardware, because reordering packets arbitrarily is overstepping the bounds of what an ISP should be doing.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 02, 2005 Posts: 11

> reordering packets arbitrarily is overstepping the bounds of what an ISP should be doing.

Time dependent packets for voice and video, imo, should get priority over non-time dependent packets.