VOIP call quality issue advice please

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brettwlewis

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I have ported a geographical number with a local VOIP provider, and we've been using them for close to 2 years now.

But...

My staff continually mutter about struggling with call quality and I've been reading some of the posts in the VOIP forums and I'm thinking of going the route of a MyPBX. I can't afford my clients to battle with poor call quality.

I've experienced the dodgy call quality (just like a cellphone call with bad signal) myself on the odd occasion, though I'm not based at the same location all the time.

We have a dedicated 2MB DSL line feeding into a Billion 5200 router (with a second seperate 2MB DSL and router for data) and we are using 2 Siemens A580IP handsets sharing one base station. We use an IPC account from the provider.

I'm pretty sure that the provider uses ECN on the upstream.

Any suggestions? (The provider doesn't seem to be able to do anything to improve things).
 
Sounds to me like you have a hosted pbx solution, the problem is with your provider, they only terminate with ECN, ECN will never allow anything besides a patton to connect to their network via IPC, secondly the A580IP's support G729 I imagine it would be at the standard 20 millisecond payload (ECN runs on 60 milliseconds) ask you current provider to change to 20 millisecond payload with a jitter buffer of 60 milliseconds and see if that resolves your issues if not...

Your best bet would be to connect to ECN directly (either via IPC or SIP)

The MyPBX is a great solution, but since you are already on pure IP, it would be a bit of a waste as the MyPBX caters for FXO and FXS connections too, so you are paying for a lot of functionality that you would probably not use, I would suggest you put together a atom based pc or buy a small form factor one from pinnacle (QBOX) for around R2200.00 (the last time I checked) at put together a freepbx mobo.

drop me a line if you want more info and assistance
 
brettwlewis said:
I have ported a geographical number with a local VOIP provider, and we've been using them for close to 2 years now.

But...

My staff continually mutter about struggling with call quality and I've been reading some of the posts in the VOIP forums and I'm thinking of going the route of a MyPBX. I can't afford my clients to battle with poor call quality.

I've experienced the dodgy call quality (just like a cellphone call with bad signal) myself on the odd occasion, though I'm not based at the same location all the time.

We have a dedicated 2MB DSL line feeding into a Billion 5200 router (with a second seperate 2MB DSL and router for data) and we are using 2 Siemens A580IP handsets sharing one base station. We use an IPC account from the provider.

I'm pretty sure that the provider uses ECN on the upstream.

Any suggestions? (The provider doesn't seem to be able to do anything to improve things).
Click to expand...

Hello
Business VoIP CANNOT be run over ADSL, full stop!
What you need for Enterprise VoIP is a Symmetric, 1:1 non-contented, Cisco backed, low latency, stable backhaul connection to your provider. An OTEL Channel Partner will be able to retail you this connection from as little as R795 per month, with a Cisco Router.

PM Me your contact details and I'll get a Channel Partner in your area to be in touch with you.

M
 
Thanks for the input guys. :)

InfinityMVS, yes we have a hosted PBX. I'm not sure how having a local PBX box would help. I may drop you a line.

mo_to, considering that my needs are max 3 concurrent calls, would it not just make more sense to go for 3 good 'ol telkom lines (and some kind of local PBX) - that will work out cheaper. I may install the back-haul only to find it exposes other weaknesses on my provider's side. My business is small and my requirements are relatively simple.
 
As for your provider, if you really want to know who they are go to www.whichvoip.co.za and type the VoIP number, not the ported number into the VoiP lookup, it will tell you who your carrier is.
As for your quality issues, remember that ADSL stands for 'A Dangerous Solution Lol" when it comes to VoIP, check out some quality backhaul as suggested .
 
If I do the search I get Nashua Communications as my provider, but the company I deal with is Iconnect.
 
Real simple that one ! Nashua own ECN ! iConnect does not have their own network, they interconnect with ECN amongst others
 
Any decent VOIP Supplier should be able to get you a dedicated diginet to run only voice traffic. Now a days is going for under R1000 which is cheaper than ADSL with dedicated 5 sip channels. I pay a little more than R2000 for a diginet that can give me around 15-20 consecutive calls.
 
Thanks webtailor, but I don't understand why I wouldn't go for 3 telkom lines and a MyPBX for the IVR, voicemail etc. - this will very quickly ammortise to lessd than R100 per month, just for the connectivity. But, yes, I get your message that diginet is preferred over the DSL I am using. :)

Another provider I've been chatting to is suggesting Vibe to increase my call quality - any thoughts on this guys?
 
brettwlewis said:
Thanks webtailor, but I don't understand why I wouldn't go for 3 telkom lines and a MyPBX for the IVR, voicemail etc. - this will very quickly ammortise to lessd than R100 per month, just for the connectivity. But, yes, I get your message that diginet is preferred over the DSL I am using. :)

Another provider I've been chatting to is suggesting Vibe to increase my call quality - any thoughts on this guys?
Click to expand...

ViBE is a wonderful technology only when deployed in the correct environment..once again, if the ADSL exchange is poor, then no matter what technology you use, the VoIP quality will be poor.

I say again, Enterprise VoIP CANNOT be run over ADSL. Whether 3 lines or 20 lines, you cannot compromise with telecoms which is the lifeblood of your business. Either you do it right, or don't do it at all!

Factor the costs of NGN Leased Line within your monthly telecom costs. I see no reason as to why you would still not save and increase productivity with Telephone 2.0 services such as 1Cloud Hosted PBX if your next alternative is analogue/PSTN lines.

Use ViBE over OTEL's NGN, we have a Channel Partner who can help you with this. PM me your details, I'll ask him to contact you.

Move forward with technology, don't get left behind :)

M
 
mo_to said:
ViBE is a wonderful technology only when deployed in the correct environment..once again, if the ADSL exchange is poor, then no matter what technology you use, the VoIP quality will be poor.

I say again, Enterprise VoIP CANNOT be run over ADSL. Whether 3 lines or 20 lines, you cannot compromise with telecoms which is the lifeblood of your business. Either you do it right, or don't do it at all!
Click to expand...

^ This
 
Howcome so many service providers over VOIP, but we need all of this high end stuff to make it work properly for business? Is it because of all the ISPs who throttle ports etc to make more money and not give us what we really need?
 
OK first off anybody that says VOIP cannot be run over ADSL does not know how to do a proper configuration of their voice box and routers. We use VoIP all over the country on ADSL and only at a few spots where the exchange is known to be bad do we use diginet or fibre. I have a customer in Melrose Arch doing 8-12 concurrent calls from 6am to 6pm on a single 4Mbps ADSL line and they have 99% success on their calls.

We use ECN as our provider and use the ECN IPC account. All customers have dedicated ADSL lines for the voice. I have added a script to all our voice boxes (based on Centos 6.3) that will automatically detect a deteriorating ADSL line and switch the gateway over to the other ADSL line at the premises and then email our support centre and alert that this happened. If the secondary line is also bad or down it fails over to Telkom lines. We are Telkom Wholesale operators which means we can then instantly recreate the DSLAM port or create a fault ticket and escalate it directly to level 7 with Telkom Wholesale. They typically respond within 2-3 hours this way.

So in other words worse case our customer is restricted to 2-3 hours of 2 concurrent calls.

You need to setup a proper jitter buffer to start off with. I use 60ms on the ECN SP console and then on my PBX I use a fixed 60ms jitter buffer. Some sites needs adaptive jitter buffers of up to 200ms. Its trial and error. We have a list of all congested exchanges and in these areas we simply get two or more ADSL lines and bond them with a Mikrotik 750 to provide failover and extra bandwidth.

I have approximately 6 customers on Diginet and 3 of fibre simply because the copper lines in their area are constantly stolen so there are no other choices. However if you have ADSL and your attenuation is less than 55 and your SNR is over 8dB you DONT NEED DIGINET.

I have NO customers that have ever cancelled due to call quality. So ask yourself - what are the rest of the guys doing wrong? We give our customers perfect faxing from our PBX (negating the need for costly FXS) and even let them use their credit cards machines on our VoIP system which works perfectly every time because we know how to set them up due to a top notch R&D team.

Go to kliq.co.za if you want a proper solution that is very cheap to install and maintain yet gives you top quality voice.
 
2-3 hours of 2 concurrent calls(down from 12) and i would be fired. Thats what, like 1/6th performance at worst case.

Its about reliability and uptime if you take communications serious, and DSL just doesn't provide that.
End of story.
 
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avert said:
2-3 hours of 2 concurrent calls(down from 12) and i would be fired. Thats what, like 1/6th performance at worst case.

Its about reliability and uptime if you take communications serious, and DSL just doesn't provide that.
End of story.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. What happens when your Diginet goes down? No calls whatsoever until they fix it.
 
If anyone wants a test VoIP account along with an IPC PPPoE account to test quality PM me
 
Superspeed said:
Fair enough. What happens when your Diginet goes down? No calls whatsoever until they fix it.
Click to expand...

i route calls over the primary or backup data line. The primary/backup data line is always a different medium. I.E. broadlink wifi/microwave/fibre or another diginet that terminates at a different location.

and yes, voip traffic is in the highest qos class when falling over to the data lines.

Theres no time to mess around when it comes to uptime.

On the other hand, if the business doesnt want to dish out for this, i make the risks blatantly obvious.
 
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