I just got new service with Paket8 VoIP provider!!!?

Question

but the echo drives me nuts....!

I use a work/switch and a router, also I use 2 desk top and 2 laptop....if that matters...!

ISP cable-modem....work/switch....router....... that order...

Answer 1

Those are good suggestions by Roger.

Packet8 provides some suggestions on their support FAQs:

http://www.packet8.net/support/faqs.aspx

Just search on "poor audio" and "port forwarding".

Even though they mention packet delays >300 ms as a problem, in reality, you don't want to see packet delay much greater than 100 ms.

For example, if I perform the ping test Packet8 suggests to:

ping -t proxy.packet8.net

then I only get packet average delays of 45 ms.  That is quite low and would be considered very good connection to their proxy.  And I am pinging from Canada...

If your VoIP box is behind your own Router, it is very, very important that you enable Port Forwarding, or "Port Triggering" of all VoIP ports required by Packet8:

http://www.packet8.net/support/faqs.aspx

Here is the ports they suggest:

"Ports used by Packet8 phone adapters and Packet8 Softalk The following ports are needed for incoming and outgoing Internet communications from and to Packet8 devices and servers. RTP (Voice) Traffic: Ports 8000-65534 UDP and Ports 8880 TCP. When a call is made, a random port between 10000 and 20000 is used for RTP (Voice) traffic. If any of these ports are blocked, you may experience one way or no audio."

Also, if you own your own router, you want to find out if it has QOS capability.  My Linksys WRT-54G Nat-Router has QOS functionality.  I set it to give "highest priority" to to my VoIP ATA box over all other Internet traffic flowing through the Router.  Proper QOS configuration will help ensure good VoIP performance possible.

Try using a different corded telephone with the VoIP box.  Some phones don't perform well and can contribute to the 'tin can" and echo issues encountered.

Answer 2

Wow...  Thought I had a rock solid network.  Apparently been getting worse little by little over time, finally noticing performance issues with simple web browsing.

That led me to start testing my network.  Used simple and cheap (free to use for 30 days) tool at http://www.pingtester.net/ (Click "Run Now", download and install.  I like this tool because it allowed me to add IP addresses on my network AND reduce the time between ping packets, allowing a fairly good stress test on the network.  BAM!!!  Packet loss between my network segment in my office to the router, about 5%.  This is a real problem, which most people would not see with normal browsing and maybe "hear" echo, choppy sounds, or faded words from caller.

THis lead me to start running tests from my laptop on other segments of my network and compare results.  I ended up replacing a long CAT 5 cable run between my office and Network Home Run area with new CAT 6 (going to replace the cable, so I recommend spending an extra few $$ for CAT 6 or CAT 6e for future bandwidth, e.g. DirecTV, gaming, video services, etc.).  So, fixed this problem.  quality of calls and general internet browsing experience was much improved.

However, after the cabling retrofit project, I continued to test -- all looked good.  Few days went by and my wife complained about call quality again.  Broke out the ping test tool and started testing.  While I did not see much packet loss, I was seeing some (about .75%), but the response time of pings between my router and office (where the P8 device is) was too high, i.e. local home network should have response times of about 1 to 10 ms -- I was seeing 200 to 500 ms on 90% of my packets during the test.

Long story short, focused in on my Netgear FVS318 router.  WIth out getting too technical, router was "hashing" or working to hard -- but I could not figure out why.  I rebooted -- nothing, cleaned up Firewall rules (yes, I have the port forwarding rules configured that P8 recommends), reboot - nothing.  Then, I disabled office to office VPN -- bingo.  I do have a few offices that we connect with a tunnel of the Internet via VPN.  I shut that down and everything works.  Further ping testing then showed no packet loss and very responsive response times -- ran tests for over 45 mins with 0 packet loss and got the 1 to 5 ms response time.

So, I broke the VPN connections to my other offices to resolve the VoIP problem.  Further troubleshooting was not easy.  Netgear support site had always listed one technique / step to use when upgrading firmware -- which I have never done as I have never had a problem (and it seemed to be a Pain in the $%# to do).   Netgear recommends to *manually* copy all router configuration information, and do a factory reset after any firmware upgrade.  As some of you can imagine, have VPN/IKE rules, routes, reserved IP addresses is a lot of info.  Netgear does not provide a "clear text" way of saving the router conigs -- so I never wanted to do this (they do have a backup utility, but the file is saved in binary, so you can not read it).  ANyway, I rolled up my sleeves and started going through screen by screen and wirting down/printing (sorrt Green folks -- used a lot of paper) my router configurations.  Reset all routers, reconfigured all routers (manually), etc.....   All is working again, no packet loss, P8 services are working great, and my VPNs are back up......

So -- look for packet loss and latency in your local network.  It was the root of my problem for a "kind of broke" network.

Hope this may help someone with their P8 problems.