Talking to Dan the Man today and Got Some News on Audio

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:44 pm

I am really impressed with this company! I emailed the boss, Dan to ask about the bad audio I've been getting at times and he has been nice enough to take the time to help me out and give me some help as well as news to share with others. The sound quality will be improving real soon as they are lowering the bandwidth. Here is Dan's statement to me about 30 minutes ago-

"we are about to use a lower bandwidth codec and that is what we are using on MJ to MJ now,and I would see how much more it helps you.

Dan

Also another of their tech people just emailed and said they are sending me another extension cord for the usb as mine is sloppy and not fitting tightly in the slot. They are also calling me tonight at a set time to check my line going from MJ to another MJ to see if the sound is better then from MJ to phone. I want to wait until tonight when the people get home and the lines load up. Last night my audio went downhill fast at rush hour.

So, I have to say these guys are really working hard to get this sytem running great. Their emails back and forth to me today has been such a nice change from what I'm used to with other bigger companies. I hope they do really good and keep the same level of customer care going as I saw today. If so, this company will set some new standards and values in the right way of treating the customer. Well done guys!

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 4:54 pm

Saxman,
Did they say when they would be instituting the new lower bandwidth codec. I use my MJ with a Sprint wireless card and the lower the bandwidth used the better. Just wondering if he gave a timeframe. Hopefully he didn't use the word "soon".

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:56 pm

Gerry, that email message is all that he said on that but the tech support guy is calling me tonight between 5 and 6 PST and I'll ask him. They want to see the difference on my phone between calling from MJ to MJ and MJ to no Mj phone as far as the audio goes. So, I'll post what they tell me tonight. I need something to keep a clear consistent signal coming through and maybe this it.

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:05 pm

OK...thanks for the reply. If they do give a timeframe I will be real interested in running some tests with the wireless card. Right now the MJ bandwidth useage is about 85kbps...I hope this will drop it into the 55-65kbps range.

Stewart · Post by **Stewart** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:07 pm

While it would be nice to have the *option* of using a compression codec in tough situations (overloaded hotel system, flaky Wi-Fi connection, some developing countries, etc.), I sure hope it doesn't become mandatory. One strength of MJ is that when it works, quality is excellent. Forced compression would ensure that you could never get better than cell phone quality, even under ideal conditions. It won't work with fax, modem applications such as TiVo, or even DTMF, unless the appropriate bypass protocols are implemented end-to-end and working perfectly. In addition, if you get multiple compression codecs cascaded, quality is really awful. That will happen when a cellular or overseas carrier is using a different codec, or when such a call is routed via a TDM trunk.

Even a low-end residential or business broadband connection will generally support at least 256 kbps; using 80 kbps for an uncompressed G.711 connection is not a heavy load. A line with 512 kbps upstream capability can support three simultaneous G.711 calls without a problem, if the voice streams are properly prioritized.

Vonage and several other VoIP providers allow the user to choose their desired codec, via their Web portal.

testing123 · Post by **testing123** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:17 pm

Stewart wrote:While it would be nice to have the *option* of using a compression codec in tough situations (overloaded hotel system, flaky Wi-Fi connection, some developing countries, etc.), I sure hope it doesn't become mandatory. One strength of MJ is that when it works, quality is excellent. Forced compression would ensure that you could never get better than cell phone quality, even under ideal conditions. It won't work with fax, modem applications such as TiVo, or even DTMF, unless the appropriate bypass protocols are implemented end-to-end and working perfectly. In addition, if you get multiple compression codecs cascaded, quality is really awful. That will happen when a cellular or overseas carrier is using a different codec, or when such a call is routed via a TDM trunk.

Even a low-end residential or business broadband connection will generally support at least 256 kbps; using 80 kbps for an uncompressed G.711 connection is not a heavy load. A line with 512 kbps upstream capability can support three simultaneous G.711 calls without a problem, if the voice streams are properly prioritized.

Vonage and several other VoIP providers allow the user to choose their desired codec, via their Web portal.

Amen on this Stewart, definitely have to agree with you here. It would be nice to be "optional" ... and I am more than a little concerned about the FAXing; which, for me, currently works very well.

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:26 pm

Actually, I had hoped for a "slider" so as to be able to select the bandwidth used for the individual subscriber. My Vonage phone performs better than the MJ under almost all conditions even with the slider set to 30kbps. I am an RF engineer and we are seeing new codecs with some incredible compression as well as voice enhancement features. Due to a lack of available frequencies we are having to do more with less bandwidth. Not long ago utilizing voice and data at the same time on a narrow band channel of 6.5 khz was unheard of, we are now doing it on a few public safety systems with decent voice quality. The open sky systems are really forging ahead in voice quality and I know Motorola labs is making major headway in digital voice quality. We will see which codec they choose and what the quality will be.

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:27 pm

Ask Dan if he will put up an update page...doesn't have to be anything fancy.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 6:45 pm

Hey ya know what. You guys know a whole lot about this stuff and I don't. Maybe I'll email Dan and ask him if he would and answer these questions for you guys. It would solve alot of guessing. I'll do that, beings he was good enough to work with me earlier today, he may not mind. And if the tech support calls me around 5 I'll ask them to do the same. It would be nice to know and save people the hastle of going through the slow lane for tech support.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:01 pm

OK Guys-Dan just wrote back this -

There is two things

1.We are going to be using VAD soon,which uses half the Bandwidth regardless of which codec we use.

2.We will introduce low bandwidth, high quality codecs like 729 e and GSM

You may post that.Most of the work was being done for evdo rev a and hspda

Dan

hope that helps

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:03 pm

Stewart,
I sent your post to him so thats the response to it.

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:16 pm

VAD is Voice Activity Detection...basically it will detect drop outs and enhance the processing of the coding quality of speech. It also enhances the quality of data over VOIP. This should actually help fax machines perform better under increasingly hostile conditions.

The G.729 speech coder is an 8 kbps Conjugate-Structure Algebraic-Code-Excited Linear Prediction (CS-ACELP) speech compression algorithm approved by ITU-T. G.729 offers high quality, robust speech performance at the price of complexity. It requires 10 ms input frames and generates frames of 80 bits in length. With the G.729 coder processing signals in 10 ms frames and a 5 ms look-ahead, the total algorithmic delay is 15 ms.

This is exiciting stuff!

For more information go here http://www.vocal.com/data_sheets/g729.html

dukeomaha · Post by **dukeomaha** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:35 pm

Saxman,

When you email Dan, send him a link to this forum. He should know what we have to say.

I came across one of his posts at dslreports and he said he wasn't aware of this forum.

Right now this is the only forum on the internet (that I know) dedicated to MJ matters and is entirely unaffiliated with the MJ company.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:07 pm

I agree Duke. I gave him the name of the forum and the thread we have going but he chose to ask me to post it, so yacan't argue with the boss right? I will ask again though. It would be nice to get the answers your wanting. Can you tell me how to unblock these ports that this VOIP test I just ran is showing blocked? I was not able to send a signal to some of the places like Boston. How do I fix this-? I have Xp-

Bandwidth

VoIP Test Results

Thank you for taking our VoIP Test. Your results are below.

Test Type Results
Bidirectional Transfer Rate 125.97 kbps
VoIP Phone Capacity 1 Concurrent Calls** (G711 Compression)
Latency 806.0 milliseconds ( Poor )
SIP Port Test Blocked
MGCP Port Test Blocked

Gerry_52 · Post by **Gerry_52** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:09 pm

I can't imagine he doesn't know this forum exists. His customer service people and engineers are aware of this forum.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:22 pm

Well he does now. I just sent him the link to this thread and forum and said there was some people with some tech questions for him if he had a minute. So, he may swing by.

Xen1969 · Post by **Xen1969** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 8:25 pm

Great thread guys, thanks.

I recall reading a post somewhere (not here) where Dan said he has tried to participate here but it didn't work.

I think the admin here should maybe set up a user name and password for Dan and send it to him. He can change his password if he wants.

Despite all the problems, I would welcome Dan here and I'm sure most of us would.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 10:34 pm

The guy from tech support just called me just as he said he would and the phone was sounding terrible! He thinks the problem is the blocked ports I have. The SIP and the MGCP are both blocked and even though I don't know what the hell they are I'm thinking they may be important to run the phone right.

I did pass along the request from some of our people here to ask that they come on the forum and chit chat about the phone with us. I said we have alot of tech savy people here that have questions for you and would it be possible to have Dan and/or his crew swing through here every now and then? He said he would pass the message to Dan and others and let us know. I said this was the best place to go for MJ questions and support. They should just move their tech support to this place. They can sit here and answer questions day and night.We gotta give them a break now and then and maybe feed em if they stay all night. Whatever it takes to get the bugs worked out and this little money saving device running perfect!

Kinda wierd that I just started getting lousy audio right after I quit the local phone company which provides my dsl. The whole internet slowed down and now the audio is breaking up tonight. Could they have blocked those ports on me? -Would Qwest do such a mean thing? lol-probably-Maybe this last week with them is supposed to be used by me to reflect on how good of service they were and by slowing up my DSL and messing with the sound quality of my new MJ phone I will give up, throw in the towel and come running back to them. It would be a good plan and a good way to get the customers back by ruining the new setup-lol O-I'm probably just being paranoid . Look at this VOIP test result. What a mess!

VoIP Test Results

Thank you for taking our VoIP Test. Your results are below.

Test Type Results
Bidirectional Transfer Rate 55.95 kbps
VoIP Phone Capacity 0 Concurrent Calls** (G711 Compression)
Latency 1034.0 milliseconds ( Poor )
SIP Port Test Blocked
MGCP Port Test Blocked
if anyone knows how to fix it and open those ports please tell me-MJ support is going over it and supposed to get back with me in a day or so. These guys are really good about following up on their promises to call back and that is so refreshing!

dukeomaha · Post by **dukeomaha** » Tue Feb 26, 2008 11:28 pm

Saxman,

I have Qwest DSL here in Omaha and all my voip devices work fine. So I doubt that Qwest block those ports.

I'm sure other tech gurus here can help you better than MJ support themselves. Maybe you should post what router and what software firewall you're using, and they'll help you open up those ports.

How about temporarity disabling all firewalls (router firewall and software firewall) and see if MJ works? If it does, then it's a firewall issue. Then reinstall software firewall and let it recreate firewall rules from scratch. Leave router firewall disabled until you know how to configure it correctly.

I only use software firewall. My router firewall is disabled because I haven't yet been able to figure out how to configure the router firewall properly.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 12:30 am

Yes-getting the ports open is a must but I have no idea how that's done. You say to shut down the firewall and see if it works. The phone works but the sound is bad at times and right now it's REAL bad. As I ws talking to the tech guy from MJ it was breaking up so bad you could not understand each other at times. Never heard it this bad before. I don't know how long those ports have been shut down but they think thats the big problem. Especially the SIP port. But' if anybody has any idea how I might get these to open up I'm ready to try it. My firewall is Norton. It's part of the 2007 program and I did check the settings and MJ is listed as ok, so it should not be a problem. I did shut it off for a while to try though and saw no difference. I may try it again, this time shutting the computer and router off for 3 or 4 minutes. I do need those ports opened back up though. My router is Actiontec GT701-WG-

So, my phone works but the sound is terrible at times like tonight and the ports are closed-SIP and MGCP, shut down. I have DSL 1.5 mbp.By the way, the tech guy had no idea when the new lower bandwidth would be going into effect but Dan says it should clear up alot of the audio problems.It's strange thatjust like yeterday the audio on the phone was fine in the daytime and as soon as the people got home from work and the computers around the neighborhood started getting turned on, the audio went to hell, same as yesterday at around the same time. 5-6 pm-So, little by little I'm getting this phone figured out. Don't run it while doing big downloads or after people get home from work around 5pm. Wierd, all that strange racket coming out of the phone I would have swore I heard something about Ralph Nader running for president!

boldm28 · Post by **boldm28** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:28 am

I use viatalk and asterix , and use 729 codec and it works great , i just dont want to use viatalk and use mj instead

DTMF handling will also be a BIGGGG problem

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:48 am

My MJ has sounded great since I installed the Hawking Broadband Booster-I still can't take calls real good while playing a video game. No big deal.

thirty5tech · Post by **thirty5tech** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:39 pm

saxman wrote:OK Guys-Dan just wrote back this -

There is two things

1.We are going to be using VAD soon,which uses half the Bandwidth regardless of which codec we use.

2.We will introduce low bandwidth, high quality codecs like 729 e and GSM

You may post that.Most of the work was being done for evdo rev a and hspda

Dan

hope that helps

HEy guys, Some of those email you guys are getting are usually automated, Reason I said that, Is because 2 letter I seen here that Dan send himself to the emailer I received myself, Could this be automated.

saxman · Post by **saxman** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:53 pm

That's fine as long as what's being said is the truth and the information is correct. If Dan has to spend time answering the same question 30 times a day it takes time away from improving the product. So auto mail response is fine with me.