Blueface line quality very poor with NTL

Dopey

Folks,

I got connected very recently with Blueface and I am finding the line quality unusable. I haven't been talking to Blueface about this yet and I'm hoping that I can get it resolved when support returns tomorrow, Monday.

The problem is likely to be with my NTL broadband connection. I am using the speed test web site below.

http://www.irishisptest.com/myspeed/

The results I am getting are;

At 2.01Mbps, download a
1 MB file in 4 seconds
10 MB file in 40 seconds
100 MB in 7 mins.

The worrying thing is

Quality of service is 96 %
Maximum pause is 60 ms

Repeated tests had the quality of service at 90 and 92%.

Could this be the problem? If not, what other stuff could I do to help diagnose and resolve the problem.

Thanks,

Dopey
p.s. Hardware used
NTL cable modem
Netgear TA612V
Netgear Wireless access point.

seamus

It could have to do with what's going on on your own network. Ideally what you would need to do is to specify QoS settings on your router (if it supports it) for all VoIP traffic. This ensures that if you're making a call, you don't have to wait until someone else is finished downloading, or if the bandwidth suddenly drops mid-call, the VoIP service gets priority.

paulm17781

How are you using it? Softphone or IP phone/ATA?

I found it not great with Softphone but excellent with ATA.

aaronc

Tracking down VoIP call quality issues can be quite tricky at times and with some ISPs pure bandwidth measurments, ie. download and upload speeds, don't give the whole picture with respect to getting a good call out. One reason is that some internet connections use bursty type data transmission which can result in a good average data rate over a 60 second download but with a real time audio stream even half a second without getting a packet is going to be noticeable. To make matters worse the bursty behaviour is used by some protocols to handle busy (contended) links so a call might be good at a certaim time of the day but bad during internet rush hour, 6pm to 9pm on weeknights.

Most VoIP providers should be able to diagnose upstream problems by doing a call anaylsis on a packet capture at their end and since upstream bandwidth is the bottleneck in just about every product offered by Irish ISPs it gives a good indication of whether the link is the problem.

I've attached some of the audio waveforms we have seen here at Blue Face.

Green = Good
Blue = Packet Drops caused by jitter discards
Red = Packet loss, i.e. didn't make it to the server
White = Silence Suppression

Satellite

WISP1

WISP2

WISP3

WISP4

DSL

Cable1

Cable2

Cable with 20+ Limewire Streams


Aaron

Blaster99

Is this utility or similar available for a customer to use to troubleshoot the connection?

aaronc

Blaster99 wrote:

Is this utility or similar available for a customer to use to troubleshoot the connection?

The software we use is Hammer Call Analyzer from www.empirix.com. It's a bit on the expensive side and wouldn't really be cost effective for individuals however there is a trial version. Most VoIP providers in Ireland are probably using it or something similar and all that is needed to analyse a call is an ethereal packet (www.ethereal.com) capture of it.

I can only speak for Blue Face but we are happy enough to run packet captures through the software and send you back the waveform (must be g711 or g729), within limits of course, we can't do hundreds a day, just send it captures to support@blueface.ie and while we don't listen in on calls unless requested to for diagnostic purposes please do not send in any calls you wouldn't be confortable having accidentally overheard. We can also do the packet capture at our end if you want to test out your upstream connection. You need to let support@blueface.ie know you want a trace along with your IP address or username and we'll set it up.

Aaron

Freddie59

aaronc wrote:

The software we use is Hammer Call Analyzer from www.empirix.com. It's a bit on the expensive side and wouldn't really be cost effective for individuals however there is a trial version. Most VoIP providers in Ireland are probably using it or something similar and all that is needed to analyse a call is an ethereal packet (www.ethereal.com) capture of it.

I can only speak for Blue Face but we are happy enough to run packet captures through the software and send you back the waveform (must be g711 or g729), within limits of course, we can't do hundreds a day, just send it captures to support@blueface.ie and while we don't listen in on calls unless requested to for diagnostic purposes please do not send in any calls you wouldn't be confortable having accidentally overheard. We can also do the packet capture at our end if you want to test out your upstream connection. You need to let support@blueface.ie know you want a trace along with your IP address or username and we'll set it up.

Aaron

I have Blueface with NTL and the quality is usually very good (probably similar to a good cellular connection). It does suffer sometimes from echo though (at my end - other OK):)

paulm17781

Apparently people get an echo on their end from me sometimes. Generally I can't fault the quality though, I use a DECT phone.

RedRooster

aaronc wrote:

The software we use is Hammer Call Analyzer from www.empirix.com. It's a bit on the expensive side and wouldn't really be cost effective for individuals however there is a trial version. Most VoIP providers in Ireland are probably using it or something similar and all that is needed to analyse a call is an ethereal packet (www.ethereal.com) capture of it.

I can only speak for Blue Face but we are happy enough to run packet captures through the software and send you back the waveform (must be g711 or g729), within limits of course, we can't do hundreds a day, just send it captures to support@blueface.ie and while we don't listen in on calls unless requested to for diagnostic purposes please do not send in any calls you wouldn't be confortable having accidentally overheard. We can also do the packet capture at our end if you want to test out your upstream connection. You need to let support@blueface.ie know you want a trace along with your IP address or username and we'll set it up.

Aaron

This level customer support is amazing.


I have Blueface with NTL using the 3mb version. The quality is perfect and I haven't needed to tinker with QoS in the firewall of the WRTG54P2 router. The only problems I experience is when I catch my wife using bittorrent to download porn:v:

Freddie59

RedRooster wrote:

This level customer support is amazing.


I have Blueface with NTL using the 3mb version. The quality is perfect and I haven't needed to tinker with QoS in the firewall of the WRTG54P2 router. The only problems I experience is when I catch my wife using bittorrent to download porn:v:

Ha ha! Go on ya messer!:D

Blaster99

Can somebody with NTL do a tracert to sip.blueface.ie, please.

Jaden

On the echo issue. I have an Asterisk server connected via Blueface, and we've noticed that calls to some cordless phones cause an echo to be heard on our end. I've been tinkering about to try and remove the echo to no avail.

I *think* the issue only occurs with cheap cordless phones, and may be related to feedback from the mouthpiece to the reciever being fed back down the line.

Anyone else any insight into this?

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

Can somebody with NTL do a tracert to sip.blueface.ie, please.

1 10 ms 8 ms 26 ms xxxxxxxxx
2 7 ms 34 ms 11 ms dbln-cam-2a-ge02-101.inet.ntl.com [82.9.148.9]
3 10 ms 8 ms 10 ms dbln-t2core-a-ge-220-0.inet.ntl.com [82.9.145.21]
4 9 ms 22 ms 9 ms dbln-bb-a-ge-230-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.53]
5 9 ms 9 ms 12 ms 213.242.106.37
6 23 ms 31 ms 24 ms so-6-0.hsa2.Dublin1.Level3.net [4.68.115.26]
7 21 ms 42 ms 26 ms 213.242.106.14
8 23 ms 23 ms 44 ms hippo.blueface.ie [213.168.225.133]

NTL 3 Mb

Blaster99

I tend to have a slight echo at my end on most calls and some international receivers have complained about echo too. The former could be something at my end, I doubt the latter is at my end as locals never complain about echo. I haven't tried to change any parameters.

Thanks Paul for the tracert. I was just curious if NTL took a different route to sip.blueface.ie, but it looks fairly similar to my IBB connection:

Tracing route to sip.blueface.ie [213.168.225.133]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.100.1
2 3 ms 2 ms 4 ms DN02-fe-1-3-1-150-3rock.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.33.17]
3 3 ms 2 ms 2 ms DN03-as1-0-tallaght.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.52.186]
4 3 ms 4 ms 2 ms DN42-as1-0-ibis-access.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.52.134]
5 3 ms 3 ms 5 ms DN42-ge-0-2-0-50-ibis-gw.irishbroadband.ie [62.231.52.157]
6 18 ms 17 ms 18 ms lvl3gw.thn.packetexchange.net [212.187.197.193]
7 17 ms 17 ms 18 ms so-1-3-0.gar2.London1.Level3.net [212.113.3.29]
8 19 ms 20 ms 21 ms ae-0-54.bbr2.London1.Level3.net [212.187.131.146]
9 29 ms 46 ms 29 ms so-2-0.hsa2.Dublin1.Level3.net [4.68.128.118]
10 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms 213.242.106.14
11 32 ms 31 ms 30 ms hippo.blueface.ie [213.168.225.133]

I get fairly poor performance on occasion, not really sure why. IBB's network is not exactly a paragon of consistency with pings that can vary from 30ms to 1,200ms to sip.blueface.ie, but normally it's reasonably stable with no packet loss and pings within 70ms. It's a bit of a bummer when problems occur in the middle of a sales call.

It would incidently be very useful as a customer if it was possible to get access to running call quality stats, like percentage packet loss and packet drop over a period of time, or whatever else is available. Or a quality indicator of some sort with a day's history or so. I get people bitching about the call quality but I have no way of troubleshooting the problem.

aaronc

Blaster99 wrote:

It would incidently be very useful as a customer if it was possible to get access to running call quality stats, like percentage packet loss and packet drop over a period of time, or whatever else is available. Or a quality indicator of some sort with a day's history or so. I get people bitching about the call quality but I have no way of troubleshooting the problem.

It would be more than very useful ! Mulitply your expressions of concern by a few magnitudes or order...

This type of thing is something we'd like to provide for two reasons:

1. An estimate to the call quality causes we've seen are: 70 to 80% due to a user's internet connection, 20 to 29% due to something on the user's end (flakey router, virus activity, p2p software, dodgy phone etc.), in 0.99% of cases due to a bad international route (typically exotic mobile destinations) and in 0.01% of cases a problem on our end.

As a VoIP provider it would be nice to provide the evidence of this quickly and easily. Also it's much better to be able to demonstrate something with hard data. People are often very dubious when the talk gets too technical but everyone can understand a graph with a big red line in it.

2. It can be very frustrating experience attempting to isolate a call quality problem and any assistance or visibility that can be provided to users would save a lot of pain.

The VoIP protocol designers actually foresaw this problem and there is a specific protocol, RTCP, that is used to convey some information about the call in realtime. The problem is it's not universally supported and there are not that many analysis tools around to deal with it (i.e. no informative realtime graphs).

Aaron

RedRooster

My wife was calling Malahide from Lucan last night as she said the was a large echo on the phone. I was using the computer before hand and did notice that boards.ie was pretty slow. Although when she made the call the computer was off.

paulm17781

RedRooster wrote:

My wife was calling Malahide from Lucan last night as she said the was a large echo on the phone. I was using the computer before hand and did notice that boards.ie was pretty slow. Although when she made the call the computer was off.

That is probably a connection issue


EDIT: http://www.testmyvoip.com no where near as good as what Aaron posted but may help slightly

chipper

i joined blueface last friday, anyone who calls me cant hear a ringing tone on their end, just silence, i will cancle the service as they say it is a problem !! and they will fix it !! i know if i dialled a number and just got silence , i would hang up.. obviously the system is only a beta testing system and is not ready to go as a service.

BigMoose

I also get echo when calling some destinations using Blueface and my IBB connection. The ping time to sip.blueface.ie is consistently around 35ms (at least it has been recently, there have been times it's been more reratic! Although that didn't seem to make much difference in echo except when it was stupidly high). I'm using a Phillips dect handset, a Sipura ATA and a Linksys router with the QoS set for the port the ATA is connected to high.

Strangely calling the inlaws in Wexford on UTV is probably the worst/consistent echo at both ends (which annoys them, but far better than various cheap calling companies they used to use). Whereas calling the UK (an NTL cable phone) is often perfect and Holland is usually OK.

I've not messed about with codecs so am using the default the ATA was configured with by Blueface, which I assume is a good thing?

bhickey

BigMoose wrote:

I also get echo when calling some destinations using Blueface and my IBB connection.
I've not messed about with codecs so am using the default the ATA was configured with by Blueface, which I assume is a good thing?

For what it's worth I've found that the only destinations I ever have an echo problem with are using cordless handsets at the far end. Also the echo problem (and general connection quality) seemed to improve when I changed to the G729 codec which uses less bandwidth.

Cabaal

chipper wrote:

i joined blueface last friday, anyone who calls me cant hear a ringing tone on their end, just silence, i will cancle the service as they say it is a problem !! and they will fix it !! i know if i dialled a number and just got silence , i would hang up.. obviously the system is only a beta testing system and is not ready to go as a service.

I'm very curious, how did you come to the conclusion that its a beta product their offering? If they say its a problem/fault and they say they will resolve it I fail to see the problem.

Faults happen, if you got broadband from BT and it had a fault you wouldn't assume their offering a beta product thats not ready for the average consumer.

paulm17781

bhickey wrote:

For what it's worth I've found that the only destinations I ever have an echo problem with are using cordless handsets at the far end. Also the echo problem (and general connection quality) seemed to improve when I changed to the G729 codec which uses less bandwidth.

That sounds like my problem. Not sure what codec I am currently using. I'll have to look into that.

Freddie59

bhickey wrote:

For what it's worth I've found that the only destinations I ever have an echo problem with are using cordless handsets at the far end. Also the echo problem (and general connection quality) seemed to improve when I changed to the G729 codec which uses less bandwidth.

How do you do this?:)

bhickey

Freddie59 wrote:

How do you do this?:)

Depending on what ATA or VoIP software you're using it will be on one of the setup pages. The setting will be called something like "Preferred Codec", "Preferred Vocoder" or similar and will typically present a drop-down menu of available codecs. Before you actually change it just make sure that your VoIP provider supports the codec that you want to use.

TempestSabre

I assume Blueface supports it.

DnaDog

i have the ata adapter and you can set the codec through the linksys web admin page, i found an improvement using G729 without loss of call quality

kevpatts

Has anyone gone for the Special limited offer including the Netgear TA612V router? I'm getting IBB in next week and considering signing up for Blueface offer.

I'd be using it behind a Linksys WRT54G router. All reports I've read though seem to say that the Netgear VoIP ATA/router:
1. can't be used behind a firewall.
2. doesn't work well if connected to a network with more than one PC (possibly same reason as before).
3. has VERY bad support from Netgear.

Do Blueface give tech support for the router? Also, I'd like to use a standard PSTN phone connected to the Netgear router and also a VoIP WIFI handset on the same number through my Linksys router.

aaronc, is this configuration possible? Has the issue of no ringing tone for people calling the VoIP phone been resolved?

One other question about Blueface's special offer: Can I get this offer but with the Freedom World package?

TempestSabre

You have to put the ATA/Router in front of your router, not behind it.

When is this Special limited offer up anyway?

kevpatts

Damn, it's up on Sunday. Gonna have to find my own ATA. Any suggestions/links?

aaronc, can I use multiple different accounts on the same BB connection?

aaronc

Maybe better to ask these questions directly to support@blueface.ie but I'll answer them here and let the moderators bump/reject if necessary.

kevpatts wrote:

I'd be using it behind a Linksys WRT54G router. All reports I've read though seem to say that the Netgear VoIP ATA/router:
1. can't be used behind a firewall.

If all the firewall is doing is blocking traffic you can use any device in the World behind it providing the traffic it's transmitting is permitted. What this statement might be trying to get at is there can be probelms behind a NAT or Router and in this respect the Netgear is the same as other adapters: it works well in 90% of cases and occassionally there are problems. A typical problem is if a NAT can't handle realtime traffic that is essential for VoIP. Once again there is nothing specific about the Netgears in this regard.

kevpatts wrote:

2. doesn't work well if connected to a network with more than one PC (possibly same reason as before).

This is a bit of a strange one again. If the Netgear, or any other ATA, can connect to the internet and has enough bandwidth it will work well. If it's on a connection where 10 other PCs are running bitorrent it won't work very well. Once more nothing here specific to the Netgear.

kevpatts wrote:

3. has VERY bad support from Netgear.

I imagine Netgear is divided up into different regions that run somewhat autonomously. So I can only speak for the region we deal with, not sure if it's Irl/UK, Europe or EMEA, but the support has been very, very good. We had a Netgear engineer provide us with a user specific firmware for one problem that cropped up which is very rare.

kevpatts wrote:

Do Blueface give tech support for the router?

Yes.

kevpatts wrote:

Also, I'd like to use a standard PSTN phone connected to the Netgear router and also a VoIP WIFI handset on the same number through my Linksys router.

aaronc, is this configuration possible?

Yes you'll be dissapointed with WiFi phones.

kevpatts wrote:

Has the issue of no ringing tone for people calling the VoIP phone been resolved?

It was only for a certain block of numbers and yes a fix has now been found and is being put in place as we speak.

kevpatts wrote:

One other question about Blueface's special offer: Can I get this offer but with the Freedom World package?

No.

Aaron

aaronc

kevpatts wrote:

Damn, it's up on Sunday. Gonna have to find my own ATA. Any suggestions/links?

aaronc, can I use multiple different accounts on the same BB connection?

Yes the more the better .

You would just want to make sure they didn't all want to speak at once.

Aaron

msmx5

Regarding Netgear support.

I recently received a reply from them on a query about the TA612V. I did receive the reply within 24hours as promised but they were not competent to answer details on the VOIP features of this router. A followup query did again receive a reply, this time a bit quicker and also from someone with a better grasp of english than the first engineer.

Each time Netgear referred me to the equipment reseller for VOIP support on the TA612V... they say that they don't have much info on the VOIP features and that the reseller/provider should be contacted for firmware updates etc.

Other than that the ATA is functioning fine.

kevpatts

Thanks all, that's all my queries sorted.

Freddie59

kevpatts wrote:

Has anyone gone for the Special limited offer including the Netgear TA612V router? I'm getting IBB in next week and considering signing up for Blueface offer.

I'd be using it behind a Linksys WRT54G router. All reports I've read though seem to say that the Netgear VoIP ATA/router:
1. can't be used behind a firewall.
2. doesn't work well if connected to a network with more than one PC (possibly same reason as before).
3. has VERY bad support from Netgear.

Do Blueface give tech support for the router? Also, I'd like to use a standard PSTN phone connected to the Netgear router and also a VoIP WIFI handset on the same number through my Linksys router.

aaronc, is this configuration possible? Has the issue of no ringing tone for people calling the VoIP phone been resolved?

One other question about Blueface's special offer: Can I get this offer but with the Freedom World package?

I have the offer ATA. In response to your query:

1. Am using it behind a Netgear wireless router.
2. Am using one Desktop and two laptops. The only quality issue is that an echo occurs at my end. I'm trying to find this linksys page (thanks DnaDog;) ) but no joy.
3. Blueface/Netgear support is 1000% (yes one thousand) percent!:D

Hope that helps.

Freddie59

Freddie59 wrote:

The only quality issue is that an echo occurs at my end. I'm trying to find this linksys page (thanks DnaDog;) ) but no joy.
Hope that helps.

Just found it under VOIP settings under prefer codec
Changed it to G.729ab@20ms (there is also one at 10ms). Will let you know if it improves.:)

TempestSabre

How bad is this echo? I would have though that echo would be a serious problem.

Freddie59

TempestSabre wrote:

How bad is this echo? I would have though that echo would be a serious problem.

Not really. In my case it's intermittent and very similar to the echo suffered on early GSM phones prior to the introduction of echo-cancelling software (which can still malfunction).:)

Freddie59

Freddie59 wrote:

Just found it under VOIP settings under prefer codec
Changed it to G.729ab@20ms (there is also one at 10ms). Will let you know if it improves.:)

This did the trick. Quality now near-perfect. No echo.:)

TempestSabre

Thanks for the update.