Choppyon Qwest DSL

[SlamX]

I have Qwest DSL 7mbit. I have the choppy audio and cannot seem to cure it with the many solutions I have tried in this forum.

I hook it up to my brother's cable internet and it is crystal clear.

I talked with Qwest and they don't have a clue and won't support voip anyway they said.

What gives here? It is driving me nuts.

Thanks

[az2008]

I have Qwest DSL 7mbit. I have the choppy audio and cannot seem to cure it with the many solutions I have tried in this forum. ...
What gives here? It is driving me nuts.

You'll have to describe what solutions you tried.

Mark

[SlamX]

Hi thanks for the reply.

WellI tried setting the majicjack.exe to high priority in task manager. Set my mtu to 1406. Played with the nic's Qos settings from on to off. Tried opening the recommended tcp and udp ports. Tried different phones.

Am interested in router Qos settings but Qwest uses combo router/modems. i have four and not sure where to or how to mess with Qos settings.

And tried the echo cancelling software.

[az2008]

WellI tried setting the majicjack.exe to high priority in task manager. Set my mtu to 1406. Played with the nic's Qos settings from on to off. Tried opening the recommended tcp and udp ports. Tried different phones.

Am interested in router Qos settings but Qwest uses combo router/modems. i have four and not sure where to or how to mess with Qos settings.

And tried the echo cancelling software.

MJ doesn't require open ports (in the sense of port forwarding WAN-initiated connections into your LAN). The only time port-fowarding helps (with buggy routers) is when it doesn't work, disconnects calls, won't stop ringing the phone. Not choppy voice.

You'd have to explain further about your NIC's QoS settings. I'm not familiar with that. If the choice is just On/Off, I don't think that's the kind of QoS you may need.

The wiki FAQ has an answer concerning choppy/garbled voice. It refers to a how-to for diagnosing the problem. That's probably the best place to start.

Mark

[gnimsh]

I have Qwest DSL as well, and I have no issues with sound quality. I use linux, and a softphone, and have no issues. I have occasionally used the MJ on my VM, and have also had no issues.

[SlamX]

That is interesting as I am 4 blocks from the CO and Qwest checked my lines etc and even put me on a brand new circuit. So go figure.

It just really puzzles me that i get perfect clear quality on cable internet and my DSl is choppy. and I have plenty of RAM and CPU power.

[HolmanGT]

That is interesting as I am 4 blocks from the CO and Qwest checked my lines etc and even put me on a brand new circuit. So go figure.

It just really puzzles me that i get perfect clear quality on cable internet and my DSl is choppy. and I have plenty of RAM and CPU power.

Give it a try with all your firewalls and anti-virus stuff turned off. I was using a couple of the better freeware firewalls on my thin clients and notice a little bit of chop, as soon as I took them off "Problem gone".

I am not suggesting running you main machine without protection "I always practice safe puters" . But some firewalls/anti-virus programs are a little stiff and perhaps you have something set a little to tight.

Also what type of machine are you using; a thing client, ATA, Desktop Computer...?

PS - What is your upload speed, that is generally the critical number.

[SlamX]

My upload speed is a consisten 700kbs. I use a desktop and a laptop. The laptop is a bare install of XP no security at all on it yet. Choppy on both laptop and desktop wifi and by ethernet. Deskto also with everything off still choppy.

I am beginnig to suspect a proxy problem. I would like to change those settings before I get that hardware internet booster thing. I hate to have to add another hardware piece to make this work right. And that certainly can inhibit the portability of MJ.

One other thing I notice is that early in morning or very late at night it clears up more.

I don't ttink my audio quality is as bad as some. The clarity is could it's just this choppy cutout every several seconds. like a bad cell phone.

Like I said earlier those onthe other end hear me loud and clear.

[HolmanGT]

My upload speed is a consisten 700kbs. I use a desktop and a laptop. The laptop is a bare install of XP no security at all on it yet. Choppy on both laptop and desktop wifi and by ethernet. Deskto also with everything off still choppy.

I am beginning to suspect a proxy problem. I would like to change those settings before I get that hardware internet booster thing. I hate to have to add another hardware piece to make this work right. And that certainly can inhibit the portability of MJ.

One other thing I notice is that early in morning or very late at night it clears up more.

I don't think my audio quality is as bad as some. The clarity is could it's just this choppy cutout every several seconds. like a bad cell phone.

Like I said earlier those on the other end hear me loud and clear.

Well now that you have destroyed my possibilities, changing servers would definitely be the next test!

I personally have never done that but there are several on here that are experts and some like to operate by PM when it comes to this topic, so if you approach anyone try PMing first. I did it once in a regular post and got my but chewed. Ouch!.

For what it is worth I have been experiencing a "little" & blank spots in conversations with my daughter for the last month or so. Not enough to get upset about... But annoying just the same.

My daughter lives in the Palm Dale Lancaster area of CA, MJ area code - prefix 760-298 and I live in the 435-275 zone of southern Utah. I don't know if that is common to you or not but if it helps - good.

[SlamX]

Just one thing again puzzles me the choppy is only me hearing them. When I talk I don't hear it an neither do they.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[HolmanGT]

Just one thing again puzzles me the choppy is only me hearing them. When I talk I don't hear it an neither do they.

Thanks for your suggestions.

SlamX,

While what I have been experiencing once again I consider to be on a par with a cell phone - can be lived with.

But as far as your one way scenario, it works that way with my daughter only to be fair we take turns. Some times it is her end that is choppy and sometime my end, seldom both at once. And we are both MJ does your problem happen while talking to other MJs and Land Lines or just one or the other.

[hsweiss]

I have Qwest DSL 7mbit. I have the choppy audio and cannot seem to cure it with the many solutions I have tried in this forum.

I hook it up to my brother's cable internet and it is crystal clear.

I talked with Qwest and they don't have a clue and won't support voip anyway they said.

What gives here? It is driving me nuts.

Thanks

One thing I don't understand - when you connect to your brother's cable are you using one of your computers or his? If its your's that give you choppy sound on the DSL, one thing I'd start to suspect is that your suffering from DSL induced jitter - that is the interarrival packet rates are not consistent. This would go hand-in-hand with your statement that Quest claims they don't support VOIP - usually when they say that its because they are not guaranteeing low jitter. Have you run a VOIP test (e.g., www.testyourvoip.net) to see what the results are on your DSL connection.

BTW, when I've used Skype with one particular friend on a DLS in California, the sound quality is horrible. I can just about not understand half of what he says. Skype is very nice that it tells you, in real-time, the packet loss in both directions, the delay, and the jitter. When talking to most people using Skype, and when the sound quality is fine, the jitter runs from 20-200. With my friend on DSL the jitter runs from 100-2000 and obviously when its up in the 2000 range, we can't communicate.

[HolmanGT]

hsweiss,

I hope that helps SlamX, but I wanted to thank you for the very informative statement.

I knew that Skype had the data available thru a call but never thought to check my daughters jitter and by the way she is Verizon DSL and I am Baja Broad Band Cable.

At least now I have a starting point to look at some of the occasionally strange behavior that I always blame on my daughters end and now it looks like my verbal work-around may actually have some truth to it.

[SlamX]

I use my laptop on the cable...same laptop I use on my DSL.

Some others on Qwest say htey have no problems....

[HolmanGT]

I use my laptop on the cable...same laptop I use on my DSL.

Some others on Qwest say htey have no problems....

With DSL your mileage will vary (little pun) on how far you are from the CO and I don't know what that stands for but it is the first switch office you hit on your way to whomever you are dialing.

If you are within a couple of mile you should be good, if you start to exceed that it will be all down hill.

But you said you had 7000 down and 700 up so you are probably pretty close, so now that I have wasted your time...

Have you ever been able to redial when you get a choppy connection and have it work better or with no choppiness? If so don't waste your time looking for something on your end. That would almost surly identify it as an MJ problem and not you equipment.

Have you been able to try another server? When you go to the friends house he may be entering the system on a different server. Even if he lives across the street he doesn't access the MJ system until by internet he reaches the transition point and that may be many miles away from where you do. Remember MJ attempts to stay Internet for as much of the trip as possible.

And then of course there is alway the "Well why don't you switch to Cable" comment that is going to come sooner or later.

[SlamX]

I am 4 bocks from the CO. that is where the main internet comes out to my area. tech sadi I could not get any closer unless I had an office in the building.

No if I hang up and try right away again same choppiness.

I would like to try diff server but in reading the info on this topic I get lost. I am not a network guru and know nothing about routing and scripts etc.

Any help how to change which server I use would be appreciated.

As I had mentioned earlier quality seems to get worse as day goes on.

I am determined to fix this...I hope.

[hsweiss]

OK - since it works fine on the same laptop connected to a different network provider (i.e., Quest DSL vs. your brother's cable), its obviously a Quest induced problem. And like HolmanGT said, with DSL, your 'mileage' will vary. It could be as simple as you have bad copper to your house inducing errors, packet losses, retransmissions, etc. Obviously re-xmissions won't be a factor with MJ since its running over UDP, but you might have a lot of lost packets caused by data corruption because of poor circuits.

A good bit-error-rate (BER) test from the CO to your DSL modem will be able to see what's going on - that is, how 'clean' your connection is. Another thing to look at is (via a Command Prompt box), netstat -s will give you IP stats such as retransmissions, discarded packets, etc to see if you are experiencing packet loss.

Also, you might try to install Skype and play around with it since as i said previously, it will give you the packet loss rate and the jitter during a call (just mouse over the existing call box and you should see a pop up with call info).

[hsweiss]

My upload speed is a consisten 700kbs. I use a desktop and a laptop. The laptop is a bare install of XP no security at all on it yet. Choppy on both laptop and desktop wifi and by ethernet. Deskto also with everything off still choppy.

I am beginnig to suspect a proxy problem. I would like to change those settings before I get that hardware internet booster thing. I hate to have to add another hardware piece to make this work right. And that certainly can inhibit the portability of MJ.

One other thing I notice is that early in morning or very late at night it clears up more.

I don't ttink my audio quality is as bad as some. The clarity is could it's just this choppy cutout every several seconds. like a bad cell phone.

Like I said earlier those onthe other end hear me loud and clear.

BTW - you are on a wired connection to your router right? Not wireless between your laptop and your router?

[SlamX]

Yes I am wired connection at home. With my laptop on the cable test it is perfect on wired and wireless. Go figure.

Just this morning here at my home on Qwest DSL MJ is crystal clear as a bell. Now as the day goes on it's going to get choppy and worse later in the day and evening.

So is that related to more user traffic or what? Qwest tells me I am on a lightly used circuit.

I am confused as to what is going on here.

[hsweiss]

For my money, I'd say its a Qwest problem. But if your service agreement says that they don't support VOIP you might be out of luck. You can try to complain up the chain and get someone to check for packet loss (which might be the problem) but I don't know if they'll check for jitter. They do advertise jitter as an issue evidenced by http://stat.qwest.net/index_flash.html

Have you tried running their speedtest at various times of the day to see what the results are: http://speedtest.qwest.net/

Also I'd suggest trying testyourvoip.net during various times of the day to see what your voice quality looks like - which is entirely ISP dependent.

[MOA]

I talked with Qwest and they don't have a clue and won't support voip anyway they said.

Qwest is also a phone company, so the last thing they would do is help you ...

[SlamX]

Well that's probably true. but Qwest also offers their own voip for a hefty price so go figure.

Thanks for the reply.

[SlamX]

With all I have described would it be worth getting the Hawkings booster device?

I don't think my router is compatible with Tomato.

How do you adjust Qos in routers?

[HolmanGT]

With all I have described would it be worth getting the Hawkings booster device?

I don't think my router is compatible with Tomato.

How do you adjust Qos in routers?

Hawkings = never used one.

But I may be able to help with the router. Some router like my DIR-655 have outgoing QoS. It measures the outgoing so that it knows the total out going bandwidth which is the critical part usually and then gives preference to things like VOIP streams. You can play with is by setting the speeds manually and fudging to the low side giving your VOIP stream even more preference.

In any router most of the other settings are for outgoing and at 7mbps you should not have any problems unless you are run some background file sharing program while listening to a streaming radio station. Just make sure that QoS is enabled. As far as opening all the ports that some folks do well you can try it but I consider it pretty unsafe. The high range ports that MJ uses are analogous to saying open everything from DC to Light.

What make and model router?

[SlamX]

Thanks very much for the reply.

I have some flexibility as I have 3 routers/mdems I can use. I currently am using the 2wire 2700Hg.

I can also use an actiontec gt701WR or the actiontec gt704WR.

All three are combo modem/routers Qwest supplies.

[HolmanGT]

Thanks very much for the reply.

I have some flexibility as I have 3 routers/mdems I can use. I currently am using the 2wire 2700Hg.

I can also use an actiontec gt701WR or the actiontec gt704WR.

All three are combo modem/routers Qwest supplies.

OK - Show much for the easy sailing. You have three devices I have never seen and some of those ISP supplied devices are not that friendly as I recall from my own experiences.

So now we are in a holding mode until someone comes along that knows about Qwest Modem/Router.

[mberlant]

Another vote against jumping into QoS in the router is that it can only prioritize traffic it has control over. That is, it can give your phone conversation a higher priority than your son's gaming, but it cannot give your telephone conversation a higher priority than your neighbor's gaming. Prior to getting involved with QoS, you can experiment by shutting down everything except your MJ, which you already have tried.

You have also tried your setup at your brother's house and got better results.

If you can get into your modem/router, I recommend you try taking the MTU setting off of automatic and setting it to either 1492 or 1432. I have found that there are many intermediate nodes in the public internet that cannot handle the full 1500 byte load that automatic MTU can generate, and that this can cause your packets to be delayed or diverted more than smaller packets are.

[SlamX]

Changing thos settings has not helped.

I ran testyourvoip and am getting 0% packet loss outbound and 3% packet loss inbound....right where my problem is I get the choppy only on them talking to me.

[mberlant]

3% loss could be causing your trouble, but pinpointing where the trouble is occurring will be a large challenge.

With 7000kbps downstream speed, the problem is not going to be between you and Qwest's DSLAM. The DSLAM could easily retransmit any packets you failed to acknowledge without you hearing a crackle. That means the problem is farther away from you.

You have brought your laptop to your brother's house already, and have confirmed that the problem is not in your PC's setup. Do you know anyone in your neighborhood with a Qwest connection you could try out? Do you know anyone in a different neighborhood, but connected through the same Qwest CO? Anyone homed into a different Qwest CO?

If the problem is between the DSLAM that serves you and the Qwest's access router in your CO, or is in some other Qwest network router further upstream, this might help you identify the culprit to them.

[SlamX]

Did you see in my earlier post that I am 4 blocks from the CO so I don't even need a dslam.

[HolmanGT]

Did you see in my earlier post that I am 4 blocks from the CO so I don't even need a dslam.

1. Do you have any DSL filters plugged into the wall?
2. Do you have a DSL filter plugged in ahead of every other device that connects to you land line?

You would not be the first person to forget to put a filter on their cable TV box or telephone in the spare bedroom.

I would suggest you try unplugging everything from the Telco except your modem and see if that fixes or alters anything.

If it does then reinstall the items one at a time checking for the problem to return. Not all DSL filters are of the highest quality.

One other thing, lets make sure we are talking about chop and not the new and very aggressive squelch that came with the last update. If you are just hearing the dead silence right after the last word the receiving party says and it may even be cutting of the last part of the last word especially if the person you are talking with puts a lot of spaces between their spoken words. I am not making this up, ask anyone here that is running MJ on a machine that has DirectX installed. Oh - that is another thing is your DirectX up to date. Yes I know MJ does not demand it anymore but it will run considerably better if you have it and it is up to date. "That's my story and I am sticking to it" (until proved wrong).

PS - 4 blks from the CO, do you take breaks with the night crew.

[mberlant]

Did you see in my earlier post that I am 4 blocks from the CO so I don't even need a dslam.

Gee, considering that the DSLAM is the bit of equipment that sits in the CO and contains the host-side DSL modem and the interface to Qwest's access router, I don't know how you have any service at all without one!

[SlamX]

mberlant LOL I think you know what I meant. How could I have a problem with a dslam so close to CO.

[hsweiss]

3% loss could be causing your trouble, but pinpointing where the trouble is occurring will be a large challenge.

With 7000kbps downstream speed, the problem is not going to be between you and Qwest's DSLAM. The DSLAM could easily retransmit any packets you failed to acknowledge without you hearing a crackle. That means the problem is farther away from you.

You have brought your laptop to your brother's house already, and have confirmed that the problem is not in your PC's setup. Do you know anyone in your neighborhood with a Qwest connection you could try out? Do you know anyone in a different neighborhood, but connected through the same Qwest CO? Anyone homed into a different Qwest CO?

If the problem is between the DSLAM that serves you and the Qwest's access router in your CO, or is in some other Qwest network router further upstream, this might help you identify the culprit to them.

But MJ runs RTP over UDP - therefore there are no retransmissions!! So if you are experiencing a 3% packet loss that's your problem. The question is are you always experiencing packet loss or is it only sporatic? With TCP traffic (e.g., web page downloads) it won't matter because the TCP retransmission will fix the losses (although you're downloads will appear to be slower). With UDP, you're going to hear dropouts on a VOIP connection.

In either case, you can complain to Qwest and maybe you'll be able to find someone who will ignore their "we don't support VOIP" claim. Or you can find another provider - e.g., your brother's cable provider?

[hsweiss]

You might also want to try to see what your jitter numbers are: http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/

Here's the results from a run on my FiOS connection w/10M down and 2M up:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 9914608 bps
Upload speed: 1864720 bps
Quality of service: 93 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 350 ms
Average download pause: 2 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 40 ms
Average round trip time to server: 54 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 6.8 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 11.5 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 11
Estimated MOS score: 4.0

[mberlant]

But MJ (SIP protocol -- ed.) runs RTP over UDP - therefore there are no retransmissions!!

Shame on me. I know better than that. I must have been on drugs when I said that.

[hsweiss]

But MJ (SIP protocol -- ed.) runs RTP over UDP - therefore there are no retransmissions!!

Shame on me. I know better than that. I must have been on drugs when I said that.

You're excused!