The audio fix that finally worked for me

[iz6]

Dont know how much this will help anyone, but here is my expierience with MJ. I bought it about 3 months ago. I am running it on a Dell desktop that is about 5 years old. I had wireless broadband internet. I tried all of the tweaks and tips that have ever been mentioned on this board, and would still have very choppy calls, sometimes worse than others but never really good. I had to turn my microphone and speaker volumes wide open to even get close to useable service. I called my internet provider and they let me expierment with different speeds. We went from 756k-3M download speed and and everything in between for the upload. It seemed to work a little better when we set the speeds tp match each other on the upload and download side, but still quality was not very good. Finally I decide to try the cable high speed internet and ...wow, it is jsut as good as my home phone. I even have the slow package at 756K DL and 256 UL. The choppiness is completely gone now. Unbelievable the difference it made. My conclusion is there must be more of a lag time in the wireless high speed than in cable. So if you have the cable option I would highly recommend it.

[az2008]

My conclusion is there must be more of a lag time in the wireless high speed than in cable. So if you have the cable option I would highly recommend it.

I think it's true that wifi introduces more latency. Even a LAN wifi. I'm using cable 256kbs up, 1500kbs down with no problem directly cabled to my router.

But, I still had choppy audio. I flashed my WRT54GL to Tomato's firmware, and enabled QoS to give MJ highest priority. It works fine now. I can be on conference calls with Live Meeting (chewing up bandwidth). MJ works fine.

Mark

[JohnnyFreightTRAIN]

yeah i cant get it working to a satisfactory level on wireless broadband

[jwryahoo]

I have used the MJ with various methods -- all have been good.

I have cable at home and dsl at work. MJ works fineon both. The one at work has many people on the network - but it still works fine.

At home I have it plugged into a TC directly wired into my router -- no problem. Also if I use my laptop (at home) via wireless with the MJ plugged into it -- still no problem.

At work -- with dsl I can use the MJ directly plugged into my desktop -- no problem. I also have two laptops (wireless) at work -- if I plug the MJ into either of them --no problmes.

My personal opinion is that the quality of service very much depends on two things:

1. Your computer. I even use a small netbook Acer Aspire one xp -- works very good.

2. The telephone service that the person you are callilng is using. I have no problem calling anyone -- with the only exception of my Mother-in-Law. She uses a digital internet phone -- which causes conflicts. There is no problem with anyone else.

My 2 cents worth.

[greendl]

How did you set the QOS priority for MJ in the Tomato firmware?

[az2008]

How did you set the QOS priority for MJ in the Tomato firmware?

See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r212207 ... o-firmware

Be sure to read the entire thread. There are some downsides to standard QoS if your connection speed varies during the day.

Mark

[couch-potato]

I agree - I have wireless broadband - and have poor audio quality.

I think using a laptop on wifi is not comparable to wireless broadband, where the tower is 5 miles away.

Unfortunately, cable is not an option for me.

[Matt9876]

Running a Linksys WRT54G off Motorola cable modem and 7 megabit ISP service.

My dedicated MagicJack computer WinXP has a matching Linksys-G PCI card.


This is my main phone and it works well most of the time.

[scoobydoo]

My conclusion is there must be more of a lag time in the wireless high speed than in cable. So if you have the cable option I would highly recommend it.

I think it's true that wifi introduces more latency. Even a LAN wifi. I'm using cable 256kbs up, 1500kbs down with no problem directly cabled to my router.

But, I still had choppy audio. I flashed my WRT54GL to Tomato's firmware, and enabled QoS to give MJ highest priority. It works fine now. I can be on conference calls with Live Meeting (chewing up bandwidth). MJ works fine.

Mark

I just flashed my router from DDWRT to Tomato and it instantly cleared up the choppy connection even before tweaking the QOS. No breaks in converstions in 24 hours. This was not the case with DDWRT as every call had breaks.

[az2008]

I just flashed my router from DDWRT to Tomato and it instatnly cleared up the choppy connection even before tweaking the QOS. No breaks in converstions in 24 hours. This was not the case with DDWRT as every call had breaks.

Thanks. I had the same experience with DD-WRT. It's much more powerful/feature-filled than Tomato. But, Tomato's QoS worked *much* better for me. I didn't spend a lot of time playing with DD-WRT. I still have my backup router loaded with it. I should switch back and work with it more.

From what I've read, DD-WRT should be better because it uses a newer Linux kernal with TCP Vegas enabled (a congestion avoidance algorithm). DD-WRT also lets you specify your max inbound/outbound speeds to 0 (in the QoS setup) which apparently mean it won't cap your speed. It will just apply QoS priority. The story is, TCP Vegas (alone, or with uncapped QoS) is better than QoS alone. But, I tried 4-5 things and it was choppy.

I have a relatively slow connection (1500/250). Maybe DD-WRT (and TCP Vegas) would be more effective for higher speeds.

Mark