Can I, as an end-user (consumer), decrease the latency, jitter, and "no ring tone" on my VOIP?

Question

I am a subscriber to a VOIP phone service and on an off-and-on basis, experience latency and/or jitter problems - the common enemies of VOIP telephone service. I also off-and-on will experience a problem where I hear a dial tone, but then dead-air once I dial a number (no ring, nothing).

Is there anything that I, as an end-user (consumer), can do to fix these problems? Or, do I have to count on my VOIP provider?

Answer 1

There are many factors that cause latency and jitter.

Jitter is more of a factor caused mostly by your ISP and the Internet.  But, your ISP doesn't have control over how the Internet VoIP packets travel from the source to your destination.  By nature, the Internet packets can take many different routes to and from your VoIP phone, thus the jitter issues.

QOS can also be a complex subject too.  It isn't always just a simple matter of just flipping on a QOS switch.  Routers can usually be configured to enable QOS.  But, that is easier said than done.  Most users aren't techy enough to properly configure their routers for optimal QOS for VoIP.  And, then some ATA's also have QOS settings too.  Are you using a soft-phone?  Some configurable soft-phones have QOS settings also.  And, if you are using a soft-phone, then your PC firewall (if enabled) will also have it's own QOS settings. Windows XP also has QOS handling feature that can be enabled/disabled.  So now we have multiple devices in-series that may or may not be properly configured for QOS.  This is not a simple subject or solution (at least not yet).

Ringing and audio problems are mostly caused by router port-blocking issues.  If security wasn't such a big issue, and if we didn't have to put our PC's and ATA's behind NAT Routers and Firewalls, VoIP issues and problems would be far less and VoIP would be more popular and accepted and reliable.  But, in the real world, we have to be behind NAT Routers and Firewalls, and this is where many VoIP problems arise.  Many VoIP services have problems traversing NAT Routers, or it causes "intermittent" traversal issues.  Again, not a simple subject with simple solutions.

Usually, the easiest way to determine if VoIP problems are related to firewall port blocking is to temporarily put your VoIP ATA in your routers "DMZ Zone".  When in DMZ, all ports are open and it is a good way to - test - for port blocking issues.

No Dial-tone, if not due to port blocking, is usually a "Registration" issue.  To receive phone calls on your ATA or softphone, your ATA must maintain "registration" with your VoIP service provider.  If you lose registration.... then you won't get dial-tone and thus, no calls...  Your VoIP ATA will usually have LED status lights that you should be monitoring for sustained registration.  If you lose service registration, the LED's will usually indicate this problem.  Reasons could be loss of Internet connection, NAT Router Travesal problems, port blocking issues, or improperly configured ATA.

Latency - is really an issue of where you reside in relation to your VoIP service provider and their POP's (points of presence).  Latency is caused by "Propogation Delay" of your VoIP packets.  Obviously, the farther away you call, the longer distance your VoIP packets have to travel to get to and from the destinations.  So blaming a VoIP service for latency issues isn't necessarily the VoIP service providers doing, or lack thereof.  However, your VoIP provider does have some impact on this issue.  The closer the services Proxy Servers and POPs are to you, usually the less latency issues you will have.  So, sometimes switching VoIP services may be the only option you have to solve latency problems.

I have VoIP accounts with Many different VoIP service providers and carriers.  So, I get different latency with different service providers. But, sometimes you can have some control over latency, when dealing with some VoIP services. Some VoIP services will have multiple Proxy Servers located in various centres around the country and world.  So, the trick is to make sure your ATA, or configurable soft-phone, is set to Register with the Proxy Server closest to where you live.  The closer you are to the proxy server, the less latency you will generally experience.

I use my own configurable softphones on my PC and configurable ATA for VoIP calling without a PC.  So, I can pick and choose which service providers allow me to configure my own equipment and adjust my own settings for optimal performance.  And, I only use VoiP services that allow Pay-As-You-Go, so I'm not locked into contracts, which makes it easy to jump around between different services....

Answer 2

These symptoms are usually caused by the Internet service provider, not the VOIP provider. The easiest thing you can do is upgrade your service, or switch to a better provider. Your phone also competes with everything else on your home network for bandwidth so see if there is something that is soaking up your bandwidth. It may also help to enable a feature called QoS on your router. Quality of Service can help prioritize realtime packets over less critical data on the network. Not all routers support this, so you might have to upgrade.