Truphone

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MrG

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Heya

Okay, I made a query here about a month ago regarding VOIP problems. I mentioned before I have a MyMeg 500 which is basically JUST for VOIP. I make use of Truphone on a daily basis.

When using an MTN (3G Yellow) sim I can call, drive around and everything without any large problems. Vodacom on the other hand, no such luck. The call is always extremely bad and patchy.

Every place I have been to have this problem, I cant move around anywhere in a house or street or area without the call becoming broken and poor quality, MTN network does not do this.

If I am in the living room and I move down the passage to my room I lose the call. If I am moving in the car the call becomes patchy, all areas with perfect 3G reception. MTN also doesnt do this.

I am asking, can having a 32K simcard be the problem? Those yellow 3G MTN cards arent 32K as far as I know. is the Vodacom towers configured in a different way to MTN? I really do believe its a signal issue, but I cant see the problem being everywhere.

Ive tested this in a number of areas. Im very confused. If it were the 32k sim, would I be charged for a proper 3G UMTS sim?

My download and upload speeds are well over what is required for a simple 4kb in either direction used by a VOIP call, so signal should not really be the issue.

My contract expires now in September on its 24th month and I would want to move from Nashua to VSP, if I can get this VOIP issue sorted, else my best move is to port over to MTNSP. :( Which I don't really want to do, cause Ive always preferred Vodacom.
 
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MrG , Do me a favour please. Best way to test this is to test the Ping times.

Connect your cellphone to your PC (via cable, if u have one) (preferably not via bluetooth cause that adds ping also)

Then connect to the internet from your PC using your cellphone as a dailup modem

Start -> Run -> Type in CMD (Dos Command window will popup)
In the window type : Ping karoo.mweb.co.za -t

Now do this with your MTN simcard.
Let it ping away for about 40seconds or so. and write down the average ping time. (also write down the highest ping you see on the screen )

Now disconnect and put your Vodacom simcard in. and do the same ping on this simcard.


To download via MTN , Vodacom, Cell-C or Virgin Mobile u will see speeds of 4 or 8kb up or down easily. But when you download you won't see the ping spikes , unless it drops the download as a whole.

Doing this manual ping you will be able to see the actual pings and the reason why your calls drop.

VOIP requires a constant stream, even a 1second delay in the stream will disconnect your call (1second delay = 1000ms ping)

People on adsl will get pings of around 40ms to maybe 65 or 80ms.
Because your cellphone is wireless you will prolly get around 200 to 300ms (hopefully)
If your pings are 600ms or maybe as high as 900ms i would worry. (but you'll be able to see the difference in pingtimes when you change from one Simcard to the next)


If you want to you can do the Iburst VOIP test
http://www.iburst.co.za/default.aspx?link=sales_speedtest


My 2cents,
Hope it helps :>
 
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94ms - 130ms on average. Spikes for one ping to (300 - 500) then back to the 90s/110s for another like ~20 pings

I do get some packet loss, every now and again I get a request time out.

Will test with MTN when I get the sim card. The test was done in the room I can never get any VOIP calls to be made.

Vodacom:
http://www.mrg.za.net/pingvoda.jpg
 
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Napalm said:
VOIP requires a constant stream, even a 1second delay in the stream will disconnect your call (1second delay = 1000ms ping)
Click to expand...
Why would it disconnect? Surely it's a function of how your IP stack is configured? Even on UDP we only drop a session if there is no data for 6 minutes.

You might get 'bumpy' data, and resultant bad voice, but I can't see why it should disconnect. Unless the VoIP clients are set to sensitive. But I'm sure they won't timeout at 1s. Seems extremely short.

Pinging karoo.mweb.co.za, will give you the latency to karoo.mweb.co.za. There might, or might not, be a correlation to your VoIP experience. Unless your talking to the guys at karoo.mweb.co.za over VoIP? Then it should be pretty accurate.
 
Yeah, I never get cut off from the voip call unless its been dead for like 30 seconds. It just goes all "bumpy" as you put it, and then just silence, and white noise.

If I go back to a good spot the data will continue to flow again. I know its a signal related issue, im just amazed how MTN can handle the calls perfectly, even while im a passenger in a car going all around Durbanville to Tygervalley area back Sonstraal Heights way. MTN might cut for like 2 seconds, or go funny, but recover immediately.
 
MrG 98ms en 130ms pings are sweet!!

Your VOIP should run like a dream.
 
Napalm said:
MrG 98ms en 130ms pings are sweet!!

Your VOIP should run like a dream.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats why im totally confused about the VOIP issue, but as Vodacom3G said, it may not hold true for a ping going to Truphone, since im not talking to the guys at MWeb Ill do the MTN test later today.
 
My two cents worth... I have my PC connected to the Vodacom network (EDGE) and have difficulty with Skype calls - usually I can hear the called party but they have great difficulty hearing me (yes, I've set the mic volume, signal strength good etc.)..... My cell phone is connected to the MTN network (EDGE) and I use Fring to make calls that are near perfect in quality... who knows what the reason is...
 
Hobbit said:
My two cents worth... I have my PC connected to the Vodacom network (EDGE) and have difficulty with Skype calls - usually I can hear the called party but they have great difficulty hearing me (yes, I've set the mic volume, signal strength good etc.)..... My cell phone is connected to the MTN network (EDGE) and I use Fring to make calls that are near perfect in quality... who knows what the reason is...
Click to expand...

Where is the other party and how do they connect? Do you phone the same person with Skype on your PC and Fring on your mobile?

Your observations makes sense, BTW.

Fring uses much less bandwidth than Skype (which was never designed for mobile networks). Fring on the other hand was and probably uses less than half to a third of Skype's bandwidth....

Your upload on EDGE won't be as good as your download and Skype prefers around 64Kb/s (under 40Kb/s it starts to suffer) So the other party will get a lower bit rate from you (i.e. crappy quality). You listen over the download direction and hears fine.

A good test would be to stick your VC SIM in the handset with Fring and try it.

What do you get to the VC speed test? Should be a good indication on how well Skype will work.
 
Both my Skype and Fring calls are made to the same PC running Skype in Brazil...

My VC speed test is pretty bad... usually in the region of 70kbps down and 20kbps up...
 
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