[danb]

Hi Guys:

Well I thought I would give a quick 1.5 month update. So far Voice Pulse is OK; from a customer service standpoint I have NEVER not had an email go unaswered, though as others have stated, they aren't always timely and they aren't always what I would like to hear The voice quality has been OK; I should say that I have Comcast Service with 3Mb / 256Kb speed, so I really wish they (Comcast) would increase the upload to at least 512Kb and that might help. I too have been LESS impressed by the number of features that actually "work" and coming from a networking background, I hate VAPORWARE. I thought the speed dial would be really cool, unfortunately it doesn't seem to work very well. On MY end, I would say 95% of the time the quality is so good I couldln't know whether I was on VP or a landline; for OTHERS that I have talked to, IF they are on a landline, they too report that the quality is very good, HOWEVER, some have stated that the volume LEVEL of my voice on their end is significantly lower than a alandline. Now to the POINT of my posting; where I am having some problems that (if not corrected will cost VP my business) is when I am talking to someone that is on a cellphone. NOW I am a proponent of searching before you post (but I admit I have not done and exhaustive search here but definitely will) ; having said that, I came up dry on this issue. People who talk to me on cellphones are reporting terrible quality. So far, it's happening with Nextel and T-Mobile. In fact I tried it this morning, and when I talk to someone on VP using my Nextel phone, vs a landline, I can hear dropouts low sound quality etc; it is really quite bad. At the moment I cannot figure out why this is? So if anyone has any suggestions, I would certainly appreciate them. I am going to continue resaearching the situation, but I wanted to bring this up. I am a major cell phone user as are the majority of my friends and this is a total show stopper; I would like to understand why there is such a quality difference (Nextel isn't that great mind you) but this is just night and day difference in quality. I have yet to contact VP, but I am gearing up to do so after I do some more research.

[PhoneBoy]

Mobile phones encode their voice stream using a lossy algorithm. Many VoIP providers also use lossy encoding algorithms. The end-to-end call goes through two "lossy" operations. This means a call between a mobile phone and a VoIP user is likely to suffer quality-wise.

If you use any of the bandwidth saver options on VoicePulse, you should get a significant increase in quality by not using them. G.711 isn't considered a "lossy" algorithm, just about everything else is.

[danb]

Originally Posted by PhoneBoy

Mobile phones encode their voice stream using a lossy algorithm. Many VoIP providers also use lossy encoding algorithms. The end-to-end call goes through two "lossy" operations. This means a call between a mobile phone and a VoIP user is likely to suffer quality-wise.

If you use any of the bandwidth saver options on VoicePulse, you should get a significant increase in quality by not using them. G.711 isn't considered a "lossy" algorithm, just about everything else is.

Phoneboy:

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that I should have the b/w set at high; this is in fact the case. I am using whatever default they have provided as high, which is 64Kb if I remember correctly. So, that being the case, if I drop to a lower b/w, I believe I would be introducing the lossy problems you are talking about?

Thanks,

--Dan

[PhoneBoy]

If you drop to a lower bandwidth setting, it will likely be worse. How much "worse" it is depends on your sensitivity to lossy compression algorithms (for example, I don't have a problem with G.729, some people can't stand it).

[danb]

Originally Posted by PhoneBoy

If you drop to a lower bandwidth setting, it will likely be worse. How much "worse" it is depends on your sensitivity to lossy compression algorithms (for example, I don't have a problem with G.729, some people can't stand it).

Yes, I think the whole point I was making, is this is still going to be a problem. Since I am using the highest b/w codec that VP has, lowering will only stand to "degrade" the issue not improve it; so the bottom line for me is this is a deal breaker. It MUST work "reliably" with cellphones or it is of no use to me. Am I to conclude that Vonage, Packet 8 would also have similar issues? I bought my Sipura so I can go elsewhere, but if they are going to have the same problem, I might as well get an unlimited LD plan with BS for $25.00/mth more than I currently pay with my landline. As a proponent of new technologies, I had hoped I would have better success


-Dan

[PhoneBoy]

It is a distinct possiblity, though my personal experience doesn't reflect that. On my Broadvox Direct line (which uses G.729), for instance, I regularly call people on their cell phone and it sounds okay to me.

-- PhoneBoy

[danb]

Originally Posted by PhoneBoy

It is a distinct possiblity, though my personal experience doesn't reflect that. On my Broadvox Direct line (which uses G.729), for instance, I regularly call people on their cell phone and it sounds okay to me.

-- PhoneBoy

PhoneBoy:

Have you personally used VP? Would trying Broadvox yield any better results you think?
I will look into them and see. I really want this to work, maybe another provider is the answer

[FamilyGuy]

I use VP and a good majority of my calls are to cell phones. While I do notice a bit more stepping with these calls, it is no more so than when I use my actual cell phone. I doubt any other provider will work any better, but who knows it may be worth a shot. Broadvox uses a lossy codec as it is, so my guess is that it would be worse. Broadvoice and Vonage are the only other major providers that use G711u.

From your observations, is there a difference in call quality when you dial to a cell phone or if they are dialing you from there cell phone? If it is the latter, you could ask VP to put you on a different switch to see if the problem clears up.

[PhoneBoy]

Originally Posted by danb

Have you personally used VP? Would trying Broadvox yield any better results you think?

I haven't had any serious issues with VP or Broadvox in this particular regard (and yes, I use both). I did have some issues with Vonage using anything beyond their "high" bandwidth option. Granted, that was a year ago with the Cisco ATA-186.

-- PhoneBoy