The Vonage Chop - Hudson Valley Region in NY

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

Recently over the past month I have been getting some serious audio choppage on my phone calls. Nothing in my network has changed and it happened all of a sudden. According to another post on broadband reports.com, a lot of other users in this region have been having the same issues. http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,13773601

I have a toshiba cable modem that goes into a WRT54G (that i installed for its QOS thinking it was my netgear that was broken) and I have the motorola box from Vonage behind that. Like I said it is not my equipment because it was working fine with no problems, plus replaced with all new equipment. I even upgraded to RR premium and now get 8Mbps/512K, ran several speed tests and got those numbers.

My score on testmyvoip.com is 4.3
http://www.testmyvoip.com/details.html?id=03R148

Some times the phone works fine, but most of the time its very choppy.

I'm wondering if a Vonage rep can shed some light on the troubles in this area, I emailed tech support last week and still not gotten a response, I'd also rather not wait on hold for 2 hrs to run through the same tests I can do on my own.

thanks in advance.

Posts: 3198 · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 5:46 pm Post subject:

toshiba what?

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

reebok wrote:

toshiba what?

toshiba cable modem pcx2200

update:
Packet loss test from broadband reports showing no loss
http://www.broadbandreports.com/speedresults/b2b89c432c69/1785227

Posts: 127 · Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2005 5:56 pm Post subject:

Hope this helps

Garbled Audio
Garbled audio is often caused by electromagnetic interference between wireless devices. These devices include but are not limited to, cordless phones, wireless routers and access points, cell phones, Wi-Fi devices, satellite TV, and HAM radios. Make sure the customers device including the handset is not too close to any devices mentioned above which would interfere with the service. If there are multiple handsets in the house, make sure the frequencies used by each phone system are different so that signals do not get crossed.

Static, Popping, Hissing, Buzzing, Crackling, Audio
These symptoms are usually byproducts of faulty wiring on the Analog side.

If the customer is not connected to the house wiring, have them replace the RJ-11 Jack going from the telephone to the Vonage device. Check if problem persists.
If the customer is connected through the house wiring, have the customer replace the RJ-11 cable going from the Vonage device to the wall Jack. Check if problem persists.
If problem persists have the customer disconnect the Vonage device from the house wiring and plug it into a single telephone with a new RJ-11 cable. If the problem is resolved, have the customer check their house wiring, there may either be a short or a bad cable somewhere.

Here are a few suggestions:

If the customers MTA is behind a third party router, try connecting the MTA directly to the Modem. Have the customer run a few tests to see if the issue is still there. If the issue is fixed, suggest that the customer continue with the new network setup if applicable. If applicable meaning if the MTA acts as a router so the customer can plug other devices into the network. If the customer has a Cisco ATA, he will not be able to plug the ATA into the modem and run PC's off of it because the ATA doesn't act as a router.
Ask the customer to make sure all SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection), IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and Firewall settings or applications are turned off on the modem, any third party routers and even the local PC. This will ensure that the voice traffic will not be filtered or modified in any way which would affect call quality.
Make sure any QOS feature is turned off both on the Vonage MTA (where applicable) and on the customers modem, PC, and any third party routers.

Do traceroutes from various routers on the Internet to a particular IP address. This can be used to test connectivity from different geographic locations in the US. http://stat.qwest.net/looking_glass.html
Do traceroutes from various routers on the Internet to a particular IP address. This can be used to test connectivity from different geographic locations in the world. http://www.geektools.com/traceroute.php or http://www.bgp4.net/tr

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

But what I dont get is, if NOTHING changed in my setup, then why would this have started? I redid my phone wiring when in moved in the house so it's all brand new. I have been using the same hardware and phones and have not had a problem. So unless someone installed a super rf device in my neighborhood, I don't get it lol.

Also its hard to get consistent testing because sometimes it works fine, ill have to run some packet tests when the phone is not working right, im pretty sure Im having some packet loss during those times.

Where does the Vonage service connect to (ip) so I can test my connection to that. I'm assuming there is some hub somewhere where the ip traffic gets routed.

thanks

rcb116 wrote:

Hope this helps

Garbled Audio
Garbled audio is often caused by electromagnetic interference between wireless devices. These devices include but are not limited to, cordless phones, wireless routers and access points, cell phones, Wi-Fi devices, satellite TV, and HAM radios. Make sure the customers device including the handset is not too close to any devices mentioned above which would interfere with the service. If there are multiple handsets in the house, make sure the frequencies used by each phone system are different so that signals do not get crossed.

Static, Popping, Hissing, Buzzing, Crackling, Audio
These symptoms are usually byproducts of faulty wiring on the Analog side.

If the customer is not connected to the house wiring, have them replace the RJ-11 Jack going from the telephone to the Vonage device. Check if problem persists.
If the customer is connected through the house wiring, have the customer replace the RJ-11 cable going from the Vonage device to the wall Jack. Check if problem persists.
If problem persists have the customer disconnect the Vonage device from the house wiring and plug it into a single telephone with a new RJ-11 cable. If the problem is resolved, have the customer check their house wiring, there may either be a short or a bad cable somewhere.

Here are a few suggestions:

If the customers MTA is behind a third party router, try connecting the MTA directly to the Modem. Have the customer run a few tests to see if the issue is still there. If the issue is fixed, suggest that the customer continue with the new network setup if applicable. If applicable meaning if the MTA acts as a router so the customer can plug other devices into the network. If the customer has a Cisco ATA, he will not be able to plug the ATA into the modem and run PC's off of it because the ATA doesn't act as a router.
Ask the customer to make sure all SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection), IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and Firewall settings or applications are turned off on the modem, any third party routers and even the local PC. This will ensure that the voice traffic will not be filtered or modified in any way which would affect call quality.
Make sure any QOS feature is turned off both on the Vonage MTA (where applicable) and on the customers modem, PC, and any third party routers.

Do traceroutes from various routers on the Internet to a particular IP address. This can be used to test connectivity from different geographic locations in the US. http://stat.qwest.net/looking_glass.html
Do traceroutes from various routers on the Internet to a particular IP address. This can be used to test connectivity from different geographic locations in the world. http://www.geektools.com/traceroute.php or http://www.bgp4.net/tr

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

Updated Tests when i was on a BAD phone call.

http://www.testmyvoip.com/details.html?id=2BTEG8

http://www.broadbandreports.com/speedresults/66a6b274bc44/1785286

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:29 am Post subject:

By the looks of it are yiou having more trouble with people hearing you I assume?
Your outgoing is the issue...
Loss Periods Min: 280 ms
Avg: 280 ms
Max: 280 ms
Burst Loss

Jitter Min: 0 ms
Avg: 7 ms
Max: 291 ms

Historically it is more of an issue with the ISP than it is with vonage..You could be encountering a bad router along the way etc..I know Global Crossing has had some issues lately..Try running pingplotter and see what you get.

Also, you can usually upgrade all you want, but the latency etc is the issue, not the speed..

You don't run anything else like bittorrent, etc do yuo?

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

I have run bitttorent etc and still had great voice quality. However in this case I have even shut down every device behind the reouter except the phone box and still the same thing.

I't probably is a bad router since a lot of people in this area are having it. But that would be between RR and Vonage to figure out, cuz obviously I can't call the owner of the router and complain lol.

Seriously though, I don't know how much longer I can deal with this, I may have to switch back to verizon.

Another question, I use skype and have no problems like this, could it be a codec issue or something?

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:56 am Post subject:

I highly highly doubt it...
Do you hear the choppy audio or is it your callers?

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

Trowski wrote:

I highly highly doubt it...
Do you hear the choppy audio or is it your callers?

I'm serious man, I really did run bittorrent with no problem.

Anyway, I hear the callers voice all chopped up and they keep saying WHAT..What. your cutting in and out. So it appears to be on both ends.