Blueface HELL

unkel

Mainly based on advice here, I finally went VOIP and got rid of the Eircom landline

Got the €99 Blueface deal last December including the Netgear TA612V. Setup the hardware (NTL modem -> Netgear TA612V -> Panasonic KX-TCD952EB Dect phone) and it worked - I made my first Blueface VOIP call*

* My setup is a little bit more complex as I am running a wireless router / access point as well. All my below problems remained with the above setup though, so with my router not plugged in and no internet connection to any PC, wireless or wired!

My ISP is NTL and I'm on the max package (3000 kbps down, 300 kbps up). My internet connection is rock solid - always have full download and upload speeds any time I tried / tested it

Now, I'm a VOIP n00b, so please be gentle

The voice quality was extremely poor from the start though. On almost all calls it seems to be one-way only as in as long as one person speaks and shuts up for about a second before the other person speaks it seems ok

There is massive "call chop" and "jitter" as I'm told these are the official words for the crap voice quality of the calls

Many calls go straight to voice mail, although I have verified that the phone was not used at that time. Many voice mails are poor quality or totally inaudible

My Dect phone was fine with analogue (Eircom calls). It doesn't matter how far the handset is from the base station, the quality of the line is equally poor. I also tried setting all the hardware up connected to 3 different NTL points within the house with no difference

Obviously I have contacted Blueface with my troubles. Initially they responded quickly and sent me some nice looking graphics analysing some calls and some general tips

It quickly deteriorated after that with the response to my last email taking over three weeks :mad:

They are also fobbing me off with repeating stuff like this although I've repeatedly told them the problems remain when NO router / access point / PC is connected to the Blueface router:

Aaron in Blueface wrote:

It looks like you do have some other network activity on your link while your calls are in progress that is affecting them. The best way to check this is to unplug everything from your network except the phone and see if your call quality improves.

Applications such as peer-to-peer programs and any other streaming type ones can have a detrimental affect on your call quality. Virus activity is alos often very network intensive so it would be worthwhile running a virus checker on your PC to make sure it is clean.

Aaron in Blueface wrote:

- NTL Connection: Blue Face service reported as unusable. Cause was PC on network was infected with a virus that was saturating network bandwidth.

- NTL Connection: Poor call quality reported. Cause was PC running 100 simultaneous upstream connections to a popular peer-to-peer program.

Aaron in Blueface wrote:

I expect the cause of your issue is still something local to your network and experimentation with different set ups may help find the problem, a different phone or router for instance.

Now don't get me wrong here, I would really like VOIP to work for me. I would really like Blueface to work for me. I even like the new geographical number Blueface assigned to me

But being fobbed off is not nice. I asked specifically for any settings on the router I might try, but they ignored those

Anyone any suggestions? I know how to log in to the Netgear Router. I have not made any changes yet

Your help is much appreciated folks!!

Under pressure from the better half to give it up and get re-connected to Eircom. We're using the mobiles all the time now completely defeating the purpose of moving to VOIP. Surely you don't want me to do that?

Sorry for being long-winded

edit: tried to get rid of the word "HELL" in the title but it no longer lets me. Reason for the attempted edit is that the quality of my Blueface calls has improved dramatically after some simple changes to the Blueface router settings

FrankGrimes

I've just moved to Blueface in the past few weeks and so far so good. yeh, a couple of times incoming calls couldnt get through for no reason, but its been very rare that happened.

Other than that its been great. I've got a Sipura 2100 ATA, linksys wireless router, and DECT phones, and quality is fine (though I'd say it'd be even better when using a normal phone with it instead of DECT).

I don't know enough to figure out your problem, but make sure that when you are setting it up to test it without your router (i.e. to prove that the router is not your problem) you power router and ata off for 30 seconds, disconnect ata from router, then power ata on, then connect ata to phone and PC - thats the only way to get a clean refresh.

I'm on NTL max aswell and I'd bet an imaginary tenner there is some issue with your router, firewall, or subnet conflicts, or some other problem with your setup thats the cause of the problems so hopefully someone here can help.

unkel

FrankGrimes wrote:

I'd bet an imaginary tenner there is some issue with your router, firewall, or subnet conflicts, or some other problem with your setup thats the cause of the problems so hopefully someone here can help.

The problems remain when I have no network at all

As in just NTL modem and Blueface router plugged into the modem and my DECT phone plugged into the Blueface router. Nothing else plugged in!

RedRooster

I may well be your cable modem. I have the NTL 120 version and it disconnects continually when I try to download a large files using azureus, like linux etc. This affects my blueface connection too.

Now, I am sitting here wating for an NTL engineer to replace my modem, hopefully with a 250 model. I've heard that this fixes the problem, well in the UK anyway.

unkel

RedRooster wrote:

I may well be your cable modem. I have the NTL 120 version and it disconnects continually when I try to download a large files

I'll post the model of my NTL cable modem later. It is about 2.5 years old. How can it be my cable modem though? My internet connection is excellent. I pretty much always have full upload and full download whenever I try it. No disconnections. No need to re-boot the modem even after it's been on for months on end

bhickey

unkel wrote:

I'll post the model of my NTL cable modem later. It is about 2.5 years old. How can it be my cable modem though? My internet connection is excellent. I pretty much always have full upload and full download whenever I try it. No disconnections. No need to re-boot the modem even after it's been on for months on end

It sounds like you've tried all the various hardware permutations and combinations so far without any luck so I would think that things definitely point to the NTL side so far. If you're modem is 2.5 years I'd certainly consider having it replaced with whatever the current one is.

You could also quickly try another SIP-based service like Voipcheap.co.uk or Voipstunt to see if VoIP quality is okay using their software clients. At least then that'd help narrow down the cause of the problem.

JimmySmith

I had blueface too and was trying to work and run a business from home so the phone would have been ringing a lot.
I waqs getting calls on my mobile telling me my phone wasnt working and they werent getting through to voicemail. On a fair percentage of calls there was jittering and sometimes echos etc.
Tried all of the codecs at one stage or another and no difference.
I am of the opinion that your phoneline should be 100% so this was not good enough.
After i got a test engineer friend of mine in he narrowed it down to blueface and not viruses P2P or ISP as blueface were saying.

You should not have to email support to have your phone working and then every few days test this and that and the other. A phone should just work.
At one point ot even 2 points that they told me about it turned out that blueface were doing stuff at their end that effected my phone.

After a while i decided that as much as i liked what blueface were trying to do they were not up to scratch for a phone service, so we tested a few other voip companies. Its just too convenient to blame it on the ISP. I would like to see blueface as an ISP, then they cant blame it on the ISP all the time
Why should i have to get someone in to prove it wasnt the ISP and then find out that blueface admitted the problem was at their end after stating that it was the ISP at first?

Funnily Blueface gets the most good coverage here and i cant fault them as a company but service wise we have found broadtalk to be the most stable, though there were a few calls dropped over the last few days, we may need to go back to UTV.

Still have blueface Pay as you Go on the other line in the router though in case i cant call from broadtalk.

GerardKeating

RedRooster wrote:

I may well be your cable modem. I have the NTL 120 version and it disconnects continually when I try to download a large files using azureus, like linux etc. This affects my blueface connection too.

Azureus also kills my blueface connection a lot of the time, but is the problem blueface or Azureus?

gerard

RedRooster

Just had my modem replaced with a little blue one (250 model). The engineer said that all customers "should" have been upgraded to the new one. Loaded up azureus and it worked fine.

I recommend all NTL users to pester NTL to get their modems changed. He also said that NTL have changed frequencies and that the old modem (120) is not compatable.:v:

soSolid

I got a letter at the start of Jan from ntl saying that they would need to replace my existing modem (~3yrs old) with a new one, and that if I didn't get the finger out, the old modem would stop working around (from memory) mid-February. They came out and put in the smaller blue 250 unit. Found the BF service much more stable since then, although I also replaced my Airport Extreme router with a Cisco 831 (which is excellent) around the same time, and this also helped.

shltter

Unkel sign up to VOIPstunt

Then put your VOIPstunt details into your ATA the server is sip.voipstunt.com I think

You can use it to make free calls so you can see if it is NTL or Blueface if it works fine with Voipstunt then you can tell blueface not to fob you off with blaming NTL or viruses etc if it doesn't maybe it is NTL or perhaps it is an ATA problem perhaps you could borrow an ATA and see if it corrected the problem.

I have NTL and Blueface for about 8 months no problems so far.

JimmySmith

I think the problem is though that its all too easy to just blame the ISP and so they do. And so does anyone else you talk to about it because its an easy suspect. You wouldnt believe the arseing around you have to do to prove its not the ISP though.
Also what eas happening towards the end was that i wasnt even getting emails of my voicemail for about 1 out of 5 times a voicemail was left.
This is definitely not the ISP.

Blaster99

I've tried two ISP's with Blueface so far and the results have been fairly poor. I'm about to try a third, and if that doesn't work, then it's bye bye. The upcoming INEX connection will help to eliminate a good bit of the path so maybe that'll help. I have a chap in Germany who's using the service also, and it's pretty choppy for him also.

From my own experience, I'm not convinced having a 3rd party VoIP provider really works that well in practice. Ideally, it's a service the ISP should provide with internal QoS to guarantee voice quality.

paulm17781

I've used Blueface in a few different places, all with NTL and it has been fine. I have had some echo the odd time but never anything major.

Get something like smoke ping and ping sip.blueface.ie for an hour, send them the results to show it isn't your connection.

Freddie59

Blaster99 wrote:

I've tried two ISP's with Blueface so far and the results have been fairly poor. I'm about to try a third, and if that doesn't work, then it's bye bye. The upcoming INEX connection will help to eliminate a good bit of the path so maybe that'll help. I have a chap in Germany who's using the service also, and it's pretty choppy for him also.

From my own experience, I'm not convinced having a 3rd party VoIP provider really works that well in practice. Ideally, it's a service the ISP should provide with internal QoS to guarantee voice quality.

I have Blueface and so have two friends of mine. All of us on NTL 1 Meg and it's absoluteley brilliant. Blueface customer service (in my experience) is the best around and larger companies with more resources and staff would do well to copy the Bluface way. Long may they last. The original poster should contact NTL, as you cannot be 100% until you rule out the modem.:)

Blaster99

What makes me a bit sceptical in the scheme of things is that I'm having plenty of Skype-to-Skype conversations every day and they're perfect. The difference in voice quality is staggering in fact.

paulm17781

Blaster99 wrote:

What makes me a bit sceptical in the scheme of things is that I'm having plenty of Skype-to-Skype conversations every day and they're perfect. The difference in voice quality is staggering in fact.

Are you still fiddling with your ATA? I remember you posted about it some time ago. Perhaps this is part fo the reason??:)

Blaster99

No, not fiddling with anything. It makes no difference what it is connected to and I get very similar poor results with X-Ten. It makes no real difference whether I use G.729a or G.711, even though I think the former might be marginally better.

JimmySmith

Blaster99 wrote:

What makes me a bit sceptical in the scheme of things is that I'm having plenty of Skype-to-Skype conversations every day and they're perfect. The difference in voice quality is staggering in fact.

I find Skype perfect too.
If you could get Skype without turning on your computer and a geographic number it would beat any other VOIP provider hands down.

unkel

Thanks for all the reactions - keep 'em comin'

Blaster99 wrote:

It makes no real difference whether I use G.729a or G.711, even though I think the former might be marginally better.

Those codecs don't mean anything to me, but I had a look at the Netgear settings last night and G.729ab and G.726 were unticked. I ticked these yesterday, but have only made one call since, which was much better quality. The default codec is still set to G.711 @30ms. See my attachment for the Netgear settings. Also QoS is enabled as default on the Netgear. Should I try other settings? Any comments welcome

bhickey wrote:

You could also quickly try another SIP-based service like Voipcheap.co.uk or Voipstunt to see if VoIP quality is okay using their software clients. At least then that'd help narrow down the cause of the problem.

Forgot to mention that I've used Skype to Skype and Skype-out before firstly with a headset (quality ok, better than blueface as I have it now) and later with a VOIP USB phone (quality good, better voice quality than eircom, but with occasional slight jitter and echo)

soSolid wrote:

I got a letter at the start of Jan from ntl saying that they would need to replace my existing modem (~3yrs old) with a new one, and that if I didn't get the finger out, the old modem would stop working around (from memory) mid-February. They came out and put in the smaller blue 250 unit. Found the BF service much more stable since then, although I also replaced my Airport Extreme router with a Cisco 831 (which is excellent) around the same time, and this also helped.

RedRooster wrote:

Just had my modem replaced with a little blue one (250 model). The engineer said that all customers "should" have been upgraded to the new one. Loaded up azureus and it worked fine.

I recommend all NTL users to pester NTL to get their modems changed. He also said that NTL have changed frequencies and that the old modem (120) is not compatable.:v:

Was pestering NTL today

Rang them twice and got a call back from a supervisor. They don't want to entertain me in providing an upgraded modem unless I pay for it (€65). Told them I was advised the 250 model solves problems for other people using blueface. They'll get back to me

NTL claim the incompatible modem some people have mentioned is the very first version (the one before the 120). All of these have been replaced now. I indeed have the 120

I'll follow up on the suggestions to try using alternative VOIP providers when I get a chance and I'll update here

Thanks again for all the replies!

Freddie59

unkel wrote:

Thanks for all the reactions - keep 'em comin'
Those codecs don't mean anything to me, but I had a look at the Netgear settings last night and G.729ab and G.726 were unticked. I ticked these yesterday, but have only made one call since, which was much better quality. The default codec is still set to G.711 @30ms. See my attachment for the Netgear settings. Also QoS is enabled as default on the Netgear. Should I try other settings? Any comments welcome

Go into VOIP settings, and under preferred codec select G729ab@20ms. That did the trick for me - cut out echoes, etc. Still get the odd one, but nothing much.:)

unkel

Freddie59 wrote:

Go into VOIP settings, and under preferred codec select G729ab@20ms

Done. Thanks, Freddie59. Will let you know the results in the next day or so

Freddie59

unkel wrote:

Done. Thanks, Freddie59. Will let you know the results in the next day or so

Best of luck. Worked for me anyway.

RedRooster

unkel wrote:

Thanks for all the reactions - keep 'em comin'



Those codecs don't mean anything to me, but I had a look at the Netgear settings last night and G.729ab and G.726 were unticked. I ticked these yesterday, but have only made one call since, which was much better quality. The default codec is still set to G.711 @30ms. See my attachment for the Netgear settings. Also QoS is enabled as default on the Netgear. Should I try other settings? Any comments welcome



Forgot to mention that I've used Skype to Skype and Skype-out before firstly with a headset (quality ok, better than blueface as I have it now) and later with a VOIP USB phone (quality good, better voice quality than eircom, but with occasional slight jitter and echo)





Was pestering NTL today

Rang them twice and got a call back from a supervisor. They don't want to entertain me in providing an upgraded modem unless I pay for it (€65). Told them I was advised the 250 model solves problems for other people using blueface. They'll get back to me

NTL claim the incompatible modem some people have mentioned is the very first version (the one before the 120). All of these have been replaced now. I indeed have the 120

I'll follow up on the suggestions to try using alternative VOIP providers when I get a chance and I'll update here

Thanks again for all the replies!

I had the 120 version and the Engineer said that was incompatable.:v:

unkel

Freddie59 wrote:

Best of luck. Worked for me anyway.

A few calls this morning and the quality is much improved. Too early to draw conclusion, but I'm hopeful

RedRooster wrote:

I had the 120 version and the Engineer said that was incompatable.:v:

All the 100s (the very first ones) have been replaced in Ireland according to NTL

A quick google showed up that the issue with the 120 is UK only and directly related to the 10mbps speeds. The 120 doesn't seem to be able to handle the speeds well and needs to be rebooted all the time

Over here with the 3mbps, there shouldn't be a problem. Still hope NTL will upgrade mine to the 250 though...

unkel

Just off the phone to NTL sales enquiring about the 10mbps upgrade. Lady said I'll get it automatically to which I said I still have the old modem and it needs to be upgraded to cope with the 10mbps service

Lady said no problem - an engineer is scheduled to bring over a new modem Monday morning

Tip for anyone looking to upgrade their modem: ring sales, not support!

dam099

Blaster99 wrote:

From my own experience, I'm not convinced having a 3rd party VoIP provider really works that well in practice. Ideally, it's a service the ISP should provide with internal QoS to guarantee voice quality.

From a QoS point of view that is undoubtedly true but the problem with this is that:

a) When ISP's do this their rates tend not to be all that fantastic, look at Digiweb Metro's rates for example (apparently not strictly VOIP in a technical sense but the concept is close). They are better than Eircom but way more than Blueface in many instances.
b) If they do this then the temptation will be to deliberately stuff up 3rd party VOIP providers so as to encourage subscribers to use their higher priced offering

Freddie59

unkel wrote:

A few calls this morning and the quality is much improved. Too early to draw conclusion, but I'm hopeful

That's good news. Try a couple of the other codecs as well. You might find another one which is better and you can settle on the best one.:) PS I can't take the credit for this - like you I asked here on the VOIP forum and someone else duly obliged - unfortunately can't remember who it was now.

unkel

Freddie59 wrote:

Try a couple of the other codecs as well. You might find another one which is better and you can settle on the best one.:)

We've tried the 3 local Dublin numbers that gave the most trouble (funny but calls to mobiles were never as bad) and they seem fine. A tiny bit of jitter and a tiny bit of echo, but hey, I ain't complaining no longer

I don't really feel like messing around too much trying other codecs now things are well. People around me have been complaining enough for too long already and rightly so

Freddie59 wrote:

PS I can't take the credit for this - like you I asked here on the VOIP forum and someone else duly obliged

I wonder what setting was responsible for the improvement. Was it the enabling of all 4 codecs or the combination of doing that and changing the default codec? My guess is the former. In any case, I feel Blueface might consider on or more of the below:

1. Switch on all 4 codecs on the Netgear as default

2. Add a subsection on their support website that in case people are having difficulties, they could try a different codec

3. Don't fob people off telling them it's their ISP or virusses or network activities when people have already told them that isn't the case

I've pm'd aaronc (Blueface Support) to check if he feels like commenting on this thread

I feel Blueface provides a great product (provided it's working reasonably well), saving us few lucky enough to have cable / wireless broadband a neat €300 a year in line rentals alone.

P.S. I'll report next week if the modem upgrade made any difference. I expect not, but I need the modem anyway for NTL 10mbps

Thanks a million everyone for your help and comments

aaronc

I've pm'd aaronc (Blueface Support) to check if he feels like commenting on this thread

My first point would be that I think everyones main aim here is to try and improve the call quality for anyone having a problem. If that has been achieved here then that's the most importent thing.

Second we wouldn't normally comment on a thread that is discussing the merits of our service as obviously we're biased and I don't think there is much to gained in in a tit-for-tat argument.

However since I've been invited by the original poster for my point of view I'm more than happy to give it .

In going back over the information we have on this case I've noticed it was never mentioned that VAD should be unchecked on the Netgears (and also every other ATA in my opinion). VAD stands for Voice Activation Detection and attempts to reduce the bandwidth for a call by not transmitting any packets when there is no speaking going on. While it sounds like a good idea it doesn't work that well in practice and the conversations produced tend to be very clipped as the VAD starts and stops. We do preconfigure Blue Face routers with VAD unchecked but it is always worth double checking.

unkel wrote:

3. Don't fob people off telling them it's their ISP or virusses or network activities when people have already told them that isn't the case

I don't think we do (once again I don't think a tit-for-tat will help here but in this specific case there were 4 email responses from us and a call trace and analysis undertaken all within 5 days of the original problem notification). We do our best to ascertain the problem and if we are unable to do so, which happens maybe 1 in 20 cases, we suggest possible causes that we have come across in the past. If we don't know what the problem is then we will say so and give likely causes but these should not be taken as THE cause. It often happens that some trial and error testing with the local set up finds a solution where centralised support is unable to.

I know people will be sick of me playing this tune and I acknowledge there will be situations where the below does not apply. We have had a number of cases in the past where people have been convinced that they had done everything we suggested and there is nothing wrong with their set up. Consequently we have sent an engineer out on site to investigate further. In the 10 or so cases this happended in each case we ended up identifying something on the local set up causing the problem. While it would be great to be able to do a site visit in every case having a Blue Face VoIP Engineer cleaning viruses off a PC, de-installing Limewire, identifying faulty router firmwares or ISP network problems does detract from the service we are able to give the rest of our customers so we do try and keep them down to a minimum.

Just to emphasis again our number 1 priority is to try and identify and where possible improve the call quality as much as we can, it's obviously in our interests as well as the VoIP user's for them to have the best experieince possible.

Aaron

unkel

Thanks Aaron for commenting

I'm sure most people agree with your points there and I don't want to go into an argument, but some clarification would be great on this:

aaronc wrote:

In going back over the information we have on this case I've noticed it was never mentioned that VAD should be unchecked on the Netgears

I haven't a clue what you are talking about here. Is this something I need to check / uncheck on the router? As said, the only settings I've changed on the router are:

1. enable all four codecs (instead of the two enabled as default)
2. change the preferred codec

So how about including some quick tips on configuration on your website. I'm trying to make your job easier as well and I'm hoping Blueface will be a big commercial success saving us customers money too. Win-win situation

A lesson for you to learn: You do realise that had I not got any help here and had I not played around with the settings of the router myself, I would no longer be a Blueface customer by now. Others would have given up before me

aaronc

unkel wrote:

haven't a clue what you are talking about here. Is this something I need to check / uncheck on the router? As said, the only settings I've changed on the router are:

1. enable all four codecs (instead of the two enabled as default)
2. change the preferred codec

On the same page you made those changes there is a checkbox with the word VAD next to it. If it's ticked it should be unticked.

Aaron

unkel

aaronc wrote:

checkbox with the word VAD next to it. If it's ticked it should be unticked.

It was ticked as default! Unticked it just now, thanks Aaron

shabbyroad

on the Linksys PAP-2 is this called "Silence Supp Enable:" ??

aaronc

shabbyroad wrote:

on the Linksys PAP-2 is this called "Silence Supp Enable:" ??

Yes. I'd recommend that be disabled as well.

Aaron

GerardKeating

aaronc wrote:

On the same page you made those changes there is a checkbox with the word VAD next to it. If it's ticked it should be unticked.

Aaron,

Where is this setting on the WRT54GP2 ?

thanks

aaronc

GerardKeating wrote:

Where is this setting on the WRT54GP2 ?

On the http://192.168.15.1/Voice_adminPage.htm page choose Line 1 (or 2 depending on which phone socket you are using) and it's two thirds of the way down. it's called "Silence Supp Enable" and unlike on the Netgears is disabled by default. If you haven't switched it on yourself then it will already be off.

Aaron

jimmycrackcorm

Just to add to the debate, I've just signed up for an account. At the moment I'm only trying to use it for faxing with which I have problems but get good responses from support. I'm planning to migrate my landline to Blueface which is the logic behind this move. I'm not actually bothered if some calls won't get through as long as they go to voice or mobile. This is because we mostly use mobiles and the landline is there simply for historical reasons.

Our landline bill with UTV internet was generally about €7 on average for calls.
I've just switched my phone back to Eircom from UTV to facilitate the number transfer process from the 6th of January and only received my first bill today for €127.

I look forward to rupping up my landline.

shabbyroad

cheers Aaron.

FWIW I know the thread (at first) didn't appear to reflect well on blueface but it has been helpful to me as an existing customer to understand what can go wrong and what can be done to fix things.

Unlike the trains I think VOIP is getting there.

Mod_Man

Originally when I connected the Netgear TA612V to a NTL 1Mb/100Kb connection, people I phoned said I was choppy and could not hear me. I tried the Blueface echo test by phoning 301 and I could not hear an echo just some clippy noise. The default settings on the ATA were G711.u 30ms with all the supported codecs selected. I changed it to G711.u @20mS and only checked the G711.mu supported codec and its been working perfectly ever since..
I don't think the QoS on this Device will work with the NTL 1Mb connection as the minimum setting allowed by the router is 128Kbits/sec and NTL is only 100Kbits/sec so it will give 64Kbits of your bandwidth to your PC and only leave 34Kbits/sec for voip.. So it will only work if you use a codec that uses less than 34Kb/s. I will try tweaking it a bit more to see what other codecs work. If banwidth is low its nice to have the option of using the low bandwidth codecs.

d8player

Hi,

I am also a new subscriber to Blueface. I am subscribed to NTL's 2Mb offering. I got the Netgear TA612v ATA. Initially I found that the line quality was patchy at best and there was a bad echo (especially on incoming calls). I changed preferred codec to G729ab@20ms which made the outgoing calls better on my end but the people on the other side were reporting that the sound was very patchy (that it was breaking up). Then today after reading mod_man's comment I tried changing the prefered codec to G711.u @20mS and only checked the G711.mu supported codec. This made no difference. I am quite concerned about continuing with Blueface as I have tried the steps that have worked for others and I am still not getting a good line quality. I really really would love to drop eircom but I can't do it if the quality with voip is not as good.

Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated. I really love what Blueface are doing to the market and want to be part of it.

Thanks,
D8Player

Blaster99

Echo is often because of bad latency. What's your connection like generally? As I might have noted elsewhere, VoIP is flakey. It seems to work well for NTL users generally, though. I think NTL might be going through an upgrade period now so their network is possibly not its usual self.

Before giving up on the world, I would try a few other VoIP providers. Broadtalk offers an geographical number with no monthly commitment, for instance.

d8player

Hi Blaster

Any idea how long this network upgrading is gonna take?

Thanks,

paulm17781

Hi D8player, have you contacted Blueface? Their support is excellent.

The NTL upgrade is on going, hopefully the unreliability will go away after April 1st.

msmx5

Has anyone on NTL noticed that VOIP quality (Blueface) has been diabolical over the past few days... basically since Thursday?

I'm using the G729 codec, but seem to be getting significant packet loss leading to very poor uplink voice quality.

I know thay are upgrading customers speeds at the moment (mine hasn't been upgraded yet), I hope this isn't representative of whats to come.

I'll be testing out a freespeech.ie VOIP a/c later to try and confirm its NTL rather thank Blueface.

Mod_Man

Ye noticed its been a bit patchy today..

msmx5 wrote:

Has anyone on NTL noticed that VOIP quality (Blueface) has been diabolical over the past few days... basically since Thursday?

I'm using the G729 codec, but seem to be getting significant packet loss leading to very poor uplink voice quality.

I know thay are upgrading customers speeds at the moment (mine hasn't been upgraded yet), I hope this isn't representative of whats to come.

I'll be testing out a freespeech.ie VOIP a/c later to try and confirm its NTL rather thank Blueface.

dubadubdub

Mod_Man wrote:

Ye noticed its been a bit patchy today..

Yep. Just got off a call....terrible quality. Very close to unusable. I have to say that I'm now starting to have doubts about dumping the eircom line:mad:

Using NTL Mb BB.

fatherdougalmag

I'm on NTL 2Mbps service and called Australia yesterday. No problems at all.

Mod_Man

dubadubdub wrote:

Yep. Just got off a call....terrible quality. Very close to unusable. I have to say that I'm now starting to have doubts about dumping the eircom line:mad:

Using NTL Mb BB.

Try disconnecting your PC from the router and dial 301 the Blueface echo test.

Blaster99

I'm not using NTL and I'm getting intermittent problems too and it's very likely to do with Blueface as I'm not getting packet loss worth considering, my jitter is below 10ms, and whenever I use Smart076 it's perfect. Most calls are ok, but some have been crap with lots of breakups. Would the problems be primarily with local/national calls by any chance?

dubadubdub

Mod_Man wrote:

Try disconnecting your PC from the router and dial 301 the Blueface echo test.

Cheers, I'll try that. What should I hear?