Poor Call Quality While Downloading

[eshizzle]

Folks:

I'm a Vonage customer, and I do a fair amount of downloading. Even if I monkey with the call quality settings for my Vonage account, I still get choppy audio, and a delay while on a call even if I'm downloading like at 32k. I have a cable modem connection with a throughput of right around 2MB/sec (measured by those speed test sites). Will I run into this same problem with other VOIP providers, or is there a better hardware options for crazy downloaders like me?

[andyf]

Hi.

This should not happen. Are you sure you are downloading and not uploading? Normally the cable broadband is asymmetrical so maybe 2Mbit/s downlink and only 300kbit/s uplink. If you were uploading at 32KBytes/s (i.e. 256Kbit/s) then you may have problems as there is not enough bandwidth left for audio. However depending on your hardware configuration the VoIP should have priority over data so even if you were uploading voice should grab the bandwidth.

We also wrote an article on things to check that may be worth a read:
http://www.whichvoip.com/Intermitten...voip-phone.htm

Failing that, you should call Vonage about this. I use VoIP at home (currently Lingo) and have no such issues. I can upload and download large files with no noticeable effect on voice quality.

Andy

[eshizzle]

Thanks Andy. I did call Vonage, and they gave me some crap about my vonage router and cable modem being too close together. I'll give them one more chance to fix it before I jump ship to ViaTalk or someone else. Thanks again for the help.

[andyf]

Too close together, that's a first ....... so long as it meets 802.3 Ethernet compliance (which it will) it should not matter if it is 1 yard or 100 yards of CAT5 cable. Lame response from them in my opinion.

Keep us posted. Delighted to help if you need advice on another provider based on your needs.

Thanks.
Andy

[zahir]

Had the same problem with my VOIP at work (we use VOIP at work) and usually I get crappy quality while downloading (I can download at a maximum of 400kb/sec) at around 100kb/sec so I had to pause it or wait for it to finish before I can use my phone. Because this is from work, never thought of complaining to anyone