Can't talk to cell phones with 202

[ajaxmike]

If I connect the 202 directly to the internet modem, then all is good.  If I connect it to a port on the router, with nothing else connected (even wirelessly), calls with cell phones are broken up.  Router is Netgear WNDR3700, which is benchmarked as really fast.  I set the router QoS to give the MAC address of the 202 highest priority.

Rather than keep trying different routers, I wonder if I can just place the 202 in front of the router so that the voip traffic never even reaches the router.  If so how do I set this up?  Also, will the 202 slow down my network if it is used this way?

[drgeoff]

Try setting the OBi to 100 Mbit/s full duplex.  http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=2642.msg17170#msg17170

[Shale]

Yes, it should work. Yes it will slow things down. Part of that will be QOS, and part will be a longer path. Try it. The faster your network, the more significant the slowing will be.

Do as drgeoff  said.

In setting this up, you can either have the OBi in bridge mode, or you can have your router not issuing DHCP addresses. You can try both, but the simplest, at least initially, will be bridge mode on the OBi.

We need more reports on this. Take notes as you try configurations. Check http://www.obihai.com/OBiAdminGuide.htm, which says Instead of acting as a router, the OBi202/OBi302 can be set to work as a 3-port switch. One of the ports is internal and is used by the OBi202/OBi302 CPU only, while the two external ports (labelled as Internet and LAN) can be connected to other devices. This mode of operation is known as the bridge mode. In this mode, all the router features, such DHCP server, firewall and port forwarding, will not take effect. The QoS policy in this case is hardwired such that the native voice and related traffic will always have highest priority (this behavior is not configurable). Furthermore, accessing the OBi device management web pages from either of the two external ports is always allowed.

Does the term VLAN mean anything to you? That can a way of implementing QOS for some routers. I have only recently become aware, and my knowledge is limited. So I cannot tell you how you could use it, but it seems intriguing.

Also see https://www.google.com/#q=site:obitalk.com+%22bridge+mode%22+qos I cannot try it, because my modem is integral with my router, and there is no bridge mode available from it.

[ajaxmike]

Try setting the OBi to 100 Mbit/s full duplex.  http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=2642.msg17170#msg17170

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it, but no luck. A cell phone conversation was perhaps better (or maybe just my imagination), but still unacceptable.  When connected directly to a cable modem the voice quality of the OBi202 is pristine, even with cell phones.

I bought the OBi to replace a Linksys ATA which had the same problem, so the problem is clearly the router.  It's a gigabit router and really fast for everything else, it just doesn't seem to like cell phones on voip.

[ajaxmike]

Here is an update (spent all day working on this).

I was unable to get bridge mode working, so I used router mode.  I was able to get the following config to work:

       Cable modem >> OBi202 >> Netgear WNDR3700 >> LAN

The OBi default LAN is 192.168.10.xxx.  The Netgear reset itself to 10.0.0.1, which worked, but my LAN was already set for 192.168.1.xxx.  The Netgear would not accept 192.168.1.1, so I changed the OBi to 10.0.0.1 and returned the Netgear to 192.168.1.1.  Everything works.

I did an internet speed test and found the speed to be about 1/3 (10Mbs) of what I usually see (30Mbps),  I made sure that the port speed was set to 100Mbps (it was/is) but no improvement. Interestng that this is an undocumented option. It is Sunday evening on a holiday weekend, so perhaps traffic is a bit heavier than usual, so i will test again mid week.

My nagging questions are:

1) Is the LAN operating at 1GB/s in this config?
2) Is the WAN limited to 10Mb/s by the OBi?

[Shale]

1) Yes. The LAN should be able to go at whatever your router can do, since it is not going thru the OBi.
2) I don't know what to expect. Your 67% drop surprises me, but I have not seen any such data previously.

I suggest that you look in your router's pages and see what it shows for a WAN address and gateway. Make sure they are not 192.168.*.* addresses... I doubt it, but check.

Back on your original configuration. You had set the router up with the QOS:
http://netstorage.ringcentral.com/datasheets/routers/netgear/wndr3700_wndr3700_v02.pdf
Some say the original QOS is not so goodhttp://www.dslreports.com/forum/r24506811-wndr3700-appreciation and look to DD-WRT or other firmware. https://www.google.com/#psj=1&q=WNDR3700+qos+voip+dd-wrt+OR+tomato

Another configuration to try with the OBI in the middle is to put the OBi back into router mode, and to turn off the DHCP in your Netgear router. That might be called access point mode. See if test speeds are OK... then set up QOS in the OBi.

It may be that the OBi just cannot keep up with a fast connection as well as your router.

[drgeoff]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if putting traffic through the OBi as a router is significantly slower than putting it through a modern router.  That is just based on my professional knowledge and experience of the innards of networking kit.  I only have an OBi110 which has no router functionality so don't have any measurements to confirm my expectation.

What I don't understand is (in the original problem that started this thread) how the OBi and/or Netgear "can tell the difference" between calls going to landline phones and calls go to cellphones!  Or have I misunderstood and the reference to cellphones means calls going out from the OBi via OBiBT and a cellular carrier (rather than going over the internet)?

[ajaxmike]

The issue is that I cannot have a satisfactory call with someone on a cell phone from my voip phone.  Calls to other phones are OK.  The only reason I can think of is that perhaps cell phones introduce latency greater than a normal internet connection and the combined latency causes packets to drop ==> call breakup.

PS:  My internet connection is still terrible:  5.67Mbps on a 28Mbps service.  Usually I am in the 30+ range.  I suspect the OBi is unable to keep up. When I get some time I will try and test the following:

PC ==> cable modem
PC ==> OBi ==> cable modem
PC ==> Netgear (30Mbps)
PC ==> Netgear ==> OBi ==> cable modem (5 -15Mbps)

When connecting the OBi in the traditional way (to a port on the router) I have dropped packets, so I guess that makes it an issue for Netgear support.  I think that is my next option.  If Netgear doesn't have a solution, then I could try dd-wrt as Shale suggests.  My research on the dd-wrt firmware was that it wasn't as fast as the factory firmware, but if it solves the problem it may be the better choice.  The only other thing I haven't changed is the voip service (voip.ms),so I suppose I could try a Google talk session.

This is a lot of work to install voip (sigh).

[Shale]

Good ideas.

Also remember the **9222222222 echo test number.

[drgeoff]

@ajaxmike
1.  You haven't said explicitly what the problem is with calls to cellphones.  When you make a call to a cellphone do you have bad quality only from you, only to you or in both directions?  And if you have an incoming call from a cellphone how is the quality in each direction?

2.  I don't really buy your 'theory' of extra latency causing dropped packets.

3.  If you look at the Call Status page on the OBi's web server during a call there is quite a lot of technical info.  Can you spot significant differences between calls to landlines and calls to cellular phones?

4.  That you had the same problem with the Linksys ATA and that the OBi directly connected to your modem is fine both point a finger of suspicion at the Netgear.  I sometimes see posts saying to try disabling the ALG in the router if enabled and vice versa though I've never used a router which made that toggle available to the end-user.  It does seem to be available on yours. http://support.vocalocity.com/kb/netgear-wndr3700/.

[ajaxmike]

Re: Can't talk to cell phones with 202

drgeoff:

1.  The cell side appears to be worse and always.  The voip side is often, but not always.  It doesn't matter who initiates the call.

2. OK

3. I don't really understand what the values mean and nothing jumped out at me on a call to voicemail.  I did notice 2% packet loss on cell calls and 1% loss on voip to voip.

4.  SIP ALG is disabled.  To check it enabled I need to reconfig the network, so I will try that later.  But yeah, I already said the router was the problem; I was hoping to work around it by placing the OBi in ftont of it, but that appears to have killed the speed.

Thanks guys.  I will post what I find out.

[ajaxmike]

An update:

I did some testing last night on the WAN throughput of the OBi202 and I am pleased to report that the OBi202 does not slow down my internet connection at all.   

Previously, I was testing with the application at http://myspeed.visualware.com/ and getting very poor results. This made me suspicious.  I tried a few alternate speed tests (primarily speedtest.net) and consistently received 27Mbps download and  550-800 kbps upload.  The upload is a bit disappointing as I am paying for 1K, but that is an issue for my ISP.

There was no difference in the following configs:

PC >> modem
PC >> OBi >> modem
PC >> Netgear router >> OBi >>modem

I left the setup in the last config for now.  I would prefer to to have the OBi behind the router, but that will take some more testing.

There are some other issues, but I will start a new thread for that.

[Shale]

Keep up the good work. Please log settings that work best.

Like it or not, you are now the resident expert on the forum on this.