[sidchang1]

Recently I traveled to China and stayed in a few different hotels. To my suprise, the voice quality calling US and Taiwan from China was crystal clear in each hotel. I brought a Supura 3000 and plugged into the hotels' port and connect to hotels' room phone. It was so easy. The voice quality was much better than calling from US to US. No drop calls.
At home in US, I use Comcast NJ. Although BV improves a lot recently, the quality is still a big sacrifice in addition to constant drop calls. The broadband speed is well above the requirement.
Calling from China or US uses the same proxy in the US. Why calls from China was so clear?
Is it time for me to look for a bigger bandwith broadband carrier? or I have a bad router, modem or something else?

[Trunk]

Originally Posted by sidchang1

Why calls from China was so clear?
Is it time for me to look for a bigger bandwith broadband carrier? or I have a bad router, modem or something else?

US deregulation hasn't done anyone any favours, besides groundfloor shareholders that is. <g>

[sidchang1]

I tested my Comcast speed via http://www.dslreports.com/stest:

[Rich-M]

FYI, I get more consistant testing using: http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/default.asp The broadbandreports/dslreports servers (all of them) seem quite variable in results. Pitstop's results match what my local network monitor reports.

-Rich

PS: Pitstop is in Dallas, Tx; I'm just outside Boston and the routing to the DSLreports servers seems better but its slower.

[ethernet]

341kbps speed upload may not fast enough to have a crystal clear voice quality.

I strongly disagree. I'm sitting in Russia on an underpowered 256 kbs down / 128 kbs uplink ADSL line. Although
one G711u call takes up almost all of my bandwidth, for the most part I enjoy excellent call quality (provided BV is not having an outage, of course). I would therefore suggest the problem might be in your router's settings back home in Jersey. Thnigs like QoS, corrupted/outdated firmware and such often cause VOIP quality issues on even 5000+ kbs lines.

[mberlant]

If you are experiencing different quality based solely upon where on the internet your [same] SPA is plugged in, your problem is almost certainly in the equipment that connects you to the internet.

And, no, US deregulation (or the reversal thereof) has nothing to do with how your (or your hotel's) NAT router interfaces with your ISP's access router.

[PeDaSp]

I recently called my biz partner who was staying in China. I was calling from the UK with Broadvoice. The quality was so amazing - like a CD. Better than any call I've made anywhere in my life!

I was intrigued - so I asked a telecoms consultant friend of mine. He said there were two reasons:

The first is that China's telecoms/internet infrastructure is so new that it has installed a pure IP based system - together with all the latest switches that are VoIP aware and give QoS. Plus most of the cabling is fiber optic etc... This means your call stays pure digital all the way.

British Telecom are trying to do the same thing in the UK - move over to IP - and just the first stage is costing them

[HansJG]

Are you serious? For me call quality to anywhere (US, Europe, Taiwan, Singapore) is always much better than when calling China -- and I call China several times a day. And that goes for regular phone lines, too! Maybe you are calling some of the main cities like Shanghai and Beijing, only. But quality has greatly improved over the last month. So don't just look at the pretty facade shown to the outside world, that beauty is less than skin deep! Another power outage the whole day today in some places in Shenzhen in China, as I just heard 10 minutes ago.

And yes, the router is extremely important, I switched routers (Linksys to SMC, same settings) and things have also improved a lot.

[sidchang1]

Yes. I called from big cities like Beijing, Shanghai , Hangzhou and cities nearby from hotels. Calls from those cities to US were much better compared to cities from US to China. it was better than regular phone.

Since the voice travel through the same swithes and distance from NYC to Shanghai or Shanghai to NYC, the quality of voice should be the same. Apparently, it is much better calling from Shaighai or other Chinese cities.

In US, I tested calling without a router ( plugged into cable moden directly instead of router) and found not much difference.

[mberlant]

Originally Posted by sidchang1

Yes. I called from big cities like Beijing, Shanghai , Hangzhou and cities nearby from hotels. Calls from those cities to US were much better compared to cities from US to China. it was better than regular phone.

When you call from China to the US your call travels via internet from your client (softphone or ATA) to BV's SIP proxy in the US. From there it connects to BV's North American termination provider, who delivers it to the North American PSTN at their insertion point nearest your destination.

When you call from the US to China your call still goes via the internet from your client to BV's SIP proxy in the US. From there it goes to BV's Chinese termination provider, who delivers it to the Chinese PSTN at an insertion point in China. After that, it is at the mercy of the Chinese PSTN for ultimate delivery.

This is why you are observing the difference in call quality in the two different directions.

Originally Posted by sidchang1

Since the voice travel through the same swithes and distance from NYC to Shanghai or Shanghai to NYC, the quality of voice should be the same. Apparently, it is much better calling from Shaighai or other Chinese cities.

The voice is not traveling through the same switches, and that is the difference. When you call from Shanghai to New York your call never touches the Chinese PSTN and the gateway to the US PSTN is probably in or very close to New York City. When you call from New York to Shanghai the call never touches the US PSTN, while the Chinese gateway may be in Shanghai or Beijing or Hong Kong, depending upon both the termination provider and its network activity at the moment of the call.

Originally Posted by sidchang1

In US, I tested calling without a router ( plugged into cable moden directly instead of router) and found not much difference.

You won't see any difference if the other (non-VoIP) activity is small.