Choppy outgoing audio - Extremely low scores on testyourvoip

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

I just got the Linksys WRTP54G and ordered Vonage. My ISP is RoadRunner.

I am getting extremely choppy audio on the outgoing voice. Incoming sound seems ok so far. I've read through the forums and tried running the Speed Test:

Download 805,744 bps
Upload 364,912 bps
QOS 59%
RTT 83 ms
MaxPause 190 ms

I also tried running the test on testyourvoip.com and have gotten extremely bad scores:
http://www.testyourvoip.com/details.html?id=7Y3690

I tried pingplotter for various sites and it everything appears normal.

I've also run speed tests, and they generally come in around this one:
4372 / 354

Any ideas what is going on here? Thanks!

Posts: 646 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject:

Those results are pretty frickin awful. What's the brand/model of your cable modem?

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

paul248 wrote:

Those results are pretty frickin awful. What's the brand/model of your cable modem?

I'm using a Motorola SB5100.

On a side note that may be related, I've noticed that recently (past few months), when I connect to Windows Update to download security patches, I download at like 5kb/sec. I used to download the updates in seconds. Now it takes hours. I figured it was just Microsoft's site being hit by tons of people trying to stay on top of updates. But, maybe it's on my side?

The strange thing is, other sites load blazingly fast.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:00 pm Post subject:

http://192.168.100.1/signal.html
Could you post your info from that page?

The important values are Downstream Signal-to-noise Ratio, and Downstream/Upstream power levels.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

Also, here's a link to my latency/line test from dslreports.com:

http://www.dslreports.com/quality/nil/1792588

0% loss latency 74.5ms

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

paul248 wrote:

http://192.168.100.1/signal.html
Could you post your info from that page?

The important values are Downstream Signal-to-noise Ratio, and Downstream/Upstream power levels.

Cool, didn't know that page existed. Here's the results:

Downstream Value
Frequency 615000000 Hz Locked
Signal to Noise Ratio 37 dB
Power Level 1 dBmV The Downstream Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading

Upstream Value
Channel ID 7
Frequency 30400000 Hz Ranged

Power Level 41 dBmV

It also may be worth noting this error message in the log:
2005-07-15 16:24:35 3-Critical T002.0 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC framing

I have a ton more SYNC failures listed in the log from March 8th

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

Ok, while on the modem config page, I went ahead and reset the modem, since I hadn't done that in a long time. Now my results on testyourvoip.com are in the 4 range:

http://testyourvoip.com/details.html?id=2GNKOC

Maybe the modem just got into a funky state? Can't remember the last time I had reset it.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

Hm... those signal levels are practically perfect.

Downstream power should be -12 to +12 (middle is better)
SNR should be at least 25dB (higher is better)
Upstream power should be less than 55 (lower is better)

So, no problems there. I don't think a SYNC error is very bad, unless you're getting them all the time.

Is the computer you're running testyourvoip on wired or wireless? Testing over wireless might skew the results.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:17 pm Post subject:

Sorry, these posts are getting kinda out-of-order... Anyway, did resetting the modem fix your choppy outgoing voice also?

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 15, 2005 Posts: 13

paul248 wrote:

Sorry, these posts are getting kinda out-of-order... Anyway, did resetting the modem fix your choppy outgoing voice also?

Yeah, looks like the modem reset fixed the audio choppiness. Just called my parents in Canada for about 20 minutes. My mom said she didn't hear any problems whatsoever. My dad heard a bit a few minor cut outs here and there, but I'm more likely to attribute that to my low quality cordless I currently have hooked up.

I'm going to try hooking up my newer 5.8GHz cordles and give that a shot.

Thanks for the help. Maybe other people will see this and give a modem reboot a shot if they're having problems.