How to Fix Common VoIP Problems

When you rely on your VoIP for business communications, it is important to be able to fix certain issues internally first, before calling for support. Reliance on tech support for some VoIP issues that you can handle yourself can make you lose hours, if not days.

Here's a quick guide to help you.

Echo. Echo is an easy-to-fix VoIP problem when you know what causes the echo that you're dealing with. It could be any of these three: acoustic, electromagnetic disruption and equipment.

If it's an acoustic problem, you would just need to reduce the volume of your speakers or earpiece. You can tell that it's an acoustic echo simply by covering the mouthpiece. If it reduces the echo, then you've found your problem.

Electromagnetic disruption, on the other hand, is caused by equipment that's too near to your phone. To see if this is the cause of your VoIP echo, try to move your phone away. Did the echo disappear? If so, to solve your problem, you just need to move your phone away from typical sources of interference, such as your computer and router.

If all else fails, there is likely a problem with your equipment. You can check by switching phones. If there's no echo when you use a different phone, then you should just replace the one you're currently using.

Bandwidth. Bandwidth is somehow a general problem in VoIP. Insufficient bandwidth can cause a number of problems – we will mention some of these later.

A way to diagnose bandwidth problems is to check out your setup. Do you experience call problems when you are running other programs that eat a lot of bandwidth, such as gaming? Are there other computers connected to your network when you experience problems?

The first thing to do is to turn off and disconnect everything else. You are testing for bandwidth problems here so you need to isolate the issue. Disconnect all connecting computers. Close all other applications that use up bandwidth. Does this make your calls sound better?

If so, then, the problem really does have something to do with your bandwidth. You can implement a stopgap solution at the start. Here, you need to configure your router's QoS so that you prioritize voice and video applications. Voice apps, of course, pertain to programs that you use for VoIP. Video, on the other, is for when you use video conferencing. This may be optional if you don't really use that feature.

Eventually, especially if you use VoIP for business, you will need to upgrade your bandwidth allotment or dedicate a separate network service for your VoIP. It is problematic to have to contend with bandwidth issues. As a technology, VoIP will really eat up bandwidth. You have to be prepared for this from the get-go.

Choppy Voice. Choppy voice is one of the bandwidth issues that we mentioned earlier. You need to deal with this similarly as the above mentioned. If reconfiguring the QoS does not work, then you will need to check with your network administrator. There might be incompatibilities in how you're set up.

Jitter and Jitter Buffer. Jitter and jitter buffer are VoIP staples. Regardless of the quality of your network and VoIP service provider, jitter and jitter buffer will always be a factor in how your VoIP works.

Jitter is the different pacing of how packets arrive to the receiver. This is a natural occurrence. To make up for it and ensure that conversations can be understood, the jitter buffer gets to work. The buffer holds the voice packets before releasing them at a controlled pace. This is where problems might occur.

It could be that your jitter buffer is configured incorrectly. This will cause poor call quality and packet loss. If your buffer is too small, there's not enough to retain packets up until they can be released at an even pace. So, packets may be dropped. If it is too big, packet delivery may be delayed.

You can address these problems by configuring your dynamic jitter buffer. There is a static jitter buffer built into your router – you cannot change this. But you can configure the dynamic one via the software control panel. Ideally, the buffer depth should be at 30 to 50 milliseconds.

Monitor Your VoIP. If there's one major takeaway here, it's that you need to monitor your VoIP 24/7. For businesses that rely on VoIP communications, this is an imperative. Services of companies, like VoIP Spear, will test your VoIP quality round-the-clock. This means that you are on top of issues right away. You can do something about it, or you can decide to forward the matter to tech support.

VoIP Call Quality Issues

When you transition to VoIP, be prepared to deal with typical service problems. These are natural conditions. Normally, you shouldn't experience any service disruption or distortions even when you have these. However, if you are with a so-so network or VoIP service provider, you will feel the effects of VoIP call quality issues.

• Know about problems before they affect your day-to-day operations
• Stay on top of how your VoIP service performs
• Enjoy the full benefits of VoIP

Typical VoIP call quality issues should not affect your VoIP performance. For instance, latency, which is the delay transport of data/voice packets, is normal. Even traditional telecommunications experience latency. But if it goes beyond 150ms one way, you will definitely experience voice quality distortions.

For certain circumstances, you can address VoIP call quality issues yourself. Here are some tips:

Slow connection: This is one of the worst things to have when you want to use VoIP. Digital communications rely on your network connections. Fast connections mean that you can have unhindered conversations. When you suffer from slow connections, the best thing to do is upgrade your service. This means either getting a better service project with the same or a different service provider.

Bad equipment: It could be that you experience VoIP call quality issues and the problem is on your end. You may have the wrong router for prioritizing VoIP calls. Or, you may have outdated equipment that result in voice quality distortion. The best solution here is to upgrade to a better router wherein you'd be able to configure the QoS. With the router's QoS, you can prioritize VoIP. This lessens the bandwidth allotment for other applications, particularly the bandwidth-heavy applications ones, like gaming applications.

Delays: All forms of telecommunications experience delays or latency. The crucial issue is the length of delay. There's tolerable delay and there's delay that ruins your overall user experience. With VoIP, the two-way delay should only add up to 250ms. A rate above means that there is disruption every so often. The delays may even be causing dropped packets and gaps in the conversation.

There are several ways of dealing with delays, depending on the cause of delays. If the cause is on your end – your equipment may be out of date or defective, or your network and VoIP connections may be bad – these are situations for which you can implement fixes.

Cut wires and incorrectly setup equipment can be fixed by changing cable wires, or upgrading to a newer model.

Sometimes, too, a simple way of fixing delays is to set yourself up closer to your router. Connecting via wi-fi will cause delays and if its too much, all you need to do is go closer.

A surefire way of correcting delays caused by your system is by prioritizing voice packets. You do this by configuring your QoS. Most modern routers now come with QoS access where you can set how much priority is given to different applications. To prioritize VoIP, you just have to prioritize voice applications while reducing priority of bandwidth heavy applications, such as gaming applications.

To stay on top of how your VoIP performs, set up an account with VoIP Spear, a VoIP monitoring service that offers free trial accounts and personal, residential and business options.

Dealing with Packet Delay

The wonders of VoIP is all for nothing if you experience network problems that compromise the quality of your calls. Problems like packet delays may be minor irritants if these happen once in a blue moon. However, if this is a chronic problem, you should do something about it.

The solutions, when it comes to packet delay problems, can either be with you or your service provider. Sometimes, you just need a little tweaking on your end to enjoy better VoIP.

What Is Packet Delay

Packet delay refers to the delay in the travel time of data packets between endpoints. This delay is natural up to a certain degree. After all, data packets go through a series of hardware, plus the wireline telephone system. In a healthy network, this delay is not perceivable. You can use your VoIP and conversation is clear and without pauses.

However, in problematic networks or setups, packet delays are perceived by users as delays in audio and video, echo, feedback, and pauses in conversations, among other problems. In really bad situations, packet delays can affect how you enjoy (or not enjoy) VoIP.

Types of Packet Delays

There are two main types of packet delay, namely End System delays and IP network delays. Of these two, you can tweak settings to affect some end system delay issues.

IP network delays are delays that occur during the packet transmission. This may be caused by too much network traffic or being on a network that’s inappropriate for VoIP. The delay usually between ten to a thousand millisecond.

End system delays happen in the handling of the packets at the endpoints. Here, data packets go through decoding, encoding and buffering, with buffering being the main culprit in delays. Jitter buffer delay can take up to hundreds of milliseconds. Coding and decoding, on the other hand, only takes up to 40 milliseconds of delays total.

How Monitoring Your VoIP Helps

When you monitor your VoIP through third party services, such as VoIP Spear, you can know the root cause of your communication problems and be able to deal with this accordingly. VoIP monitoring services do consistent tests over a period of time, at set intervals. This means that you get a complete picture of your VoIP’s performance and can get to the problem right away, either to deal with this yourself or to report to your service provider.

Tweaks to Minimize Problems with Delay

There are things you can do at your end to help lessen problems caused by packet delays. Remember, however, that these are only tweaks.

1.      1.  Lessen the “path” that voice packets go through. If you are connecting to your internet via wifi, connect directly to your router instead.

2.     2.  Close all other applications that use up bandwidth. When you want to focus on VoIP, stick to that for the meantime. Close all applications that are not connected to VoIP, especially the big bandwidth eaters: file sharing and gaming.

3.       3. Customize your QoS setup. Your QoS refers to a tool when you login to your router. This lets you set upload and download speeds, bandwidth priorities. When you want to enjoy VoIP, give voice and video application top priority. Deprioritize gaming and file sharing. 

VoIP Quality Testing to Prepare for Holiday Call Traffic

Doing VoIP quality tests regularly is one of the basic steps that you need to do when you want to be prepared for the holiday's call traffic. And trust us, there will be call traffic. The next couple of months will be all about loved ones who will try to get in touch with you. When you're on VoIP or if you rely on the technology as your main means of communication, it's best to be prepared. The steps are simple but you have to start now.

Test Your Network and VoIP

As mentioned earlier, you need to have a VoIP quality monitoring service set up for your VoIP service. This does not need to cost you anything. There are free services for single endpoint setups, which is what most home users have. Check out VoIP Spear for a free account.

The services of VoIP Spear monitor your network and VoIP at set intervals, and provide you with online reports. These ensure that your system works okay, and that you can make quality VoIP calls, without interference, feedback or low quality audio. You can pinpoint problem areas and address these accordingly, either on your own or with the assistance of your network administrator.

See How You're Setup

Sometimes the problem isn't actually rooted on your network or VoIP service. It could be that you have broken or low-quality gear. Make sure that your router and ATA work at acceptable capacities. Likewise, see if you have cut wiring. Cut cables will definitely affect how you receive voice data packages.

Another aspect to check is how your gear is lined up. VoIP hardware that are too close to each other may produce interference, such as feedback and other background noise. For this, do test calls and see if you experience noise. Move your equipment around until you get better audio.

Tweak Your QoS

On top of testing your VoIP quality and your gear, it's also a good idea to tweak your QoS. QoS refers to the tool that comes with most modern routers. When you login to your router's control panel, you'll find that you can set upload and download limits, as well as bandwidth priorities based on application, device and MAC addresses, among others.

When you want to tweak your QoS for optimal VoIP performance, you need to set limits on your download and upload bandwidth usage, which would then trigger the implementation of your QoS priorities. Download and upload bandwidth usage should just be 70% to 80% of normal capacity. Use an online speed tester to get to your normal capacity. Make sure that you do not have any active transfers when you test.

Then, it's time to set your priorities. For this one, remember that you have three major bandwidth users on your setup. This is: voice, file sharing and gaming. When you want to give priority to VoIP, you need to deprioritize the others. To do this, assign Standard or Bulk priority to gaming and file transfer applications. For voice and video applications, assign Exempt as priority. When this is set at Exempt, the system assigns 60 to 100% of the bandwidth to voice and video.