Getting Ahead of VOIP Issues
VOIP phone call quality is based on the speed and consistency of your internet connection. However, sometimes the quality of a VoIP call seems unexplainable. You know your internet connection is decent, too. The sound on your VoIP call is choppy and the person on the other end sounds like they have a horrific head cold.
What do you do?
First things first: figure out if the problem is on your end. This blog will give you a few quick steps to check if you can improve your VoIP call quality, before you point the finger at your provider. (Aside: Did you know that voipreview.org has listings of over 200 VoIP providers? Check out our Business VoIP or Residential VoIP pages today to write a review of your provider!)
Pinging your VOIP connection: The Diagnosis
Techies use pinging to check the speed of their internet connection. ("Pinging" is a networking process that tests and measures how quickly networks respond to one another). If you want to see how fast your connection is, you should trying pinging, too.
Since VoIP's call quality is based on your internet's connection speed and quality, you can use pinging to check your own speed and connection quality. Sound good?
(Want to test your VoIP connection easily? Visit our VoIP speed test and run the VoIP Speedtest.)
- Get the gateway IP address of your VoIP provider You can call your VoIP provider to get this; you may be able to get this from their website. It should be a set of four numbers, separated by periods(ex. 192.168.0.1).
- Open your computer's command prompt.
On a Windows computer, you can do this by:
1.Clicking "Start"
2. Clicking "Run"
3. Type 'cmd' into the little window and click OK. A small black screen should appear after.
- Ping [IP Address]
Type "ping" followed by the IP address. Press enter. A bunch of stuff will come up on your cmd window. This is supposed to happen.
- Interpret the Data
Lost packets are bad. They mean that your connection is losing data.
Locate the minimum and maximum round trip times. Subtract the figures, then divide the result by 4 (that's amount of test you just ran). If you get something higher than 2, your VOIP sound quality will be bad, probably (this is called jitter. Jitter is an inconsistent connection).
Bad ping results mean a bad internet connection. Call your internet service provider and tell them about your bad connection.
If your internet connection is going to be bad, no matter what you do, contact your VoIP provider. They can tweak your connection settings on their end, which will mean you can improve your call quality.
Static: VoIP Call Quality in a Snowstorm
Hear that hissing sound? That's static – and it represents you pouring your money away. Diagnosing static is one of the most important ways to determine how you can improve your VoIP call quality. You may have a problem with your phone jack. A defective jack will have trouble converting and sending your VoIP call between your VoIP phone. As a result, your internet connection is slower. That lowers the quality of your VoIP call.
To remedy this, you may need to have a technician come over to check on the wiring that was originally placed in your house. He will check the status of your phone jack, identify the problem, and then apply the necessary repairs. If your calls are still muffled by then, that’s the time that you should call your VOIP provider.
Hope this helps with improving your VoIP call quality.
