Too Much Bandwidth?

[ceg3]

I am a TWC customer and recently received a big upgrade in bandwidth and now I have about 235 Mbps down and 25 up.  It almost seems I'm having poorer call quality since that upgrade, than before.  Is this unheard of?  I'm wondering if this might be the mysterious bufferbloat.

[drgeoff]

Lots of 'bandwidth'* will never be the reason for poor quality, but if it comes with high jitter or high error rates those could be responsible.

(* bandwidth is an analogue measure but is very often incorrectly used in digital scenarios.)

[RFC3261]

I am a TWC customer and recently received a big upgrade in bandwidth and now I have about 235 Mbps down and 25 up.  It almost seems I'm having poorer call quality since that upgrade, than before.  Is this unheard of?  I'm wondering if this might be the mysterious bufferbloat.

Bufferbloat can be a contributor, but typically when TWC increases the customers limits they are using the same equipment (both CMTS and residential router), so that it is not likely to be a new contributor.

Are you using (for example) a OBi2xx as a router?  If so, you will need to change the way you are doing things (the OBi2xx uses 100Mb/sec ports, and as such your new connection exceeds its capacity).

[SteveInWA]

It almost seems...

Well, that's not very specific.  The best way to actually measure any VoIP service quality issue caused by your broadband service would be to run the G.711 SIP VoIP test from Visualware.  Run it several times from various endpoints, and look for variation in the MOS.  A MOS less than 4.0 means you have a problem with your broadband service.  This time of year, it's common in many parts of the country for coaxial cable distribution systems to get moisture incursion into the cables and connectors, causing signal issues.  If you get a poor score, call TWC and complain.  It doesn't matter how fast the raw speed is; what matters is the lack of signal degradation.  The higher-speed service is enabled via channel-bonding, in which multiple cable channels (as would otherwise be used for TV) are multiplexed to provide a combined greater speed.  If one or more channels are dropping out, the modem can usually manage it, but if the signal gets really degraded, it could cause a problem.

http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php

Anticipating any objection about "I refuse to install Java", just install it long enough to run the test, then uninstall it.

As for "bufferbloat", that's DSLReports BS.  The OBi devices have adaptive buffering that is robust enough to deal with it.

The 100mbps Ethernet connection on the OBi 202 devices would only be an issue for anything plugged into the OBi's LAN port.  The OBi's internal LAN port, feeding the ATA, only needs enough speed to carry the VoIP traffic, which is insignificant, at <1Mbps per VoIP channel.  So, it doesn't matter if it's being fed from a 3Mbps DSL service, or a 1Gbps fiber service, as long as it is of sufficient quality (MOS >=4).

[restamp]

I am a TWC customer and recently received a big upgrade in bandwidth and now I have about 235 Mbps down and 25 up.  It almost seems I'm having poorer call quality since that upgrade, than before.  Is this unheard of?  I'm wondering if this might be the mysterious bufferbloat.

Several months ago my service provider, WOW cable, doubled everyone's speeds.  However, it wasn't seamless:  They had several switches that overloaded and started dropping packets as a result.  I could tell because pings to my voip provider showed significant intermittent packet loss.  Of course, calling WOW tech support was worthless; the only thing they would do is offer to send someone out to the house.  The good news is that eventually, over the next month, the packet loss problem slowly resolved itself as the network guys tweaked or upgraded the overloaded hardware, although UDP reliability has never been as rock-solid as it was before the upgrade.  So, give the TW engineers a chance to work their magic.  I'd bet that in a month things will pretty much be back to normal.

[ceg3]

To better clarify, since the upgrade I have noticed people are saying they are having difficulty hearing me and I can hear break up in the call.  There has been uncharacteristic latency and I find myself apologizing for being on a VOIP service to explain issues more often than usual.  I could be adding one and one and getting three and it's just a coincidence.

Anyway, I held my nose and installed JAVA, side-stepping the install wanting to change my browser and add some "tab."  Java is no joke.  I ran the test across the country and 4.19 seems to be the average score, so I must be OK.  I need to remember to report the calls to Google Voice, which I don't think to do often enough.  I usually don't have any complaints and am not a heavy user.  That's why any issue at all stands out.

[ceg3]

It just occurred to me that something else changed in my setup.  I had to upgrade my modem to a 16 x 4 channel bonding one to be compatible with my TWC upgrade.  What I have now is a gateway modem/router in bridge mode connected to my existing router, where my OBi is connected.

The new setup up adds more hardware for my Internet connection to pass through.  I was wondering if I might have a better experience if I connected my Obi directly to a port on the modem/router.  If I did that the OBi signal would not pass through a router firewall, with the modem firewall bridged, buy maybe my call quality would be improved, since the modem/router is facing the Internet directly.  I had another person tell me I was breaking up when I called them this morning.

[SteveInWA]

It just occurred to me that something else changed in my setup.  I had to upgrade my modem to a 16 x 4 channel bonding one to be compatible with my TWC upgrade.  What I have now is a gateway modem/router in bridge mode connected to my existing router, where my OBi is connected.

The new setup up adds more hardware for my Internet connection to pass through.  I was wondering if I might have a better experience if I connected my Obi directly to a port on the modem/router.  If I did that the OBi signal would not pass through a router firewall, with the modem firewall bridged, buy maybe my call quality would be improved, since the modem/router is facing the Internet directly.  I had another person tell me I was breaking up when I called them this morning.

That won't work.  If the TWC modem/router is in bridge mode, and you plug in a 202's WAN port, its DHCP client will try to request an IP address from the TWC gatway.  However, your other router has already been assigned the one and only IP address allowed by the provider, and so it will fail.

Have you done any troubleshooting to isolate the problem to the ITSP service provider vs. your network equipment?  In other words, if you experience the problem with Google Voice, try a SIP provider like Callcentric or voip.ms, or the reverse scenario.

[ceg3]

I think somewhere along the way it seemed I have a 202 but it's just an OBi200.  I did make the change to connecting to a Ethernet port on the modem/router and again installed Java and ran the test at several points.  I am still at 4.2 mos score, so doing that at least didn't hurt me.

I'm thinking I might give Phonepower a shot, since it's very reasonable and I haven't tried a premium account, since Vestalink crashed and burned for me.

[ceg3]

I just wanted to report that I did sign up for PhonePower unlimited and the start up was simple and everything worked immediately.   I also moved my OBi back to a port on my Router and removed it from the bridged modem/router.  I am generally a very lite user (except for hold time calling support people) but so far I'm liking PP and have had good response from their email support.  There seems to be a one day turn around for email response, but there is always telephone support.  It was time to renew my Anveo e911 service, so for not too much more I have a premium service for 12 mo.

[SteveInWA]

Good to hear!  Thanks for the "user experience" report on Phonepower.

[ceg3]

So, I called into customer support over a relatively minor voicemail issue.  Actually, Google Voice picked up a voicemail call or two, even though I was spoofing my GV number with my PhonePower setup.  It was my second call into support and both times the rep was sharp, was obviously in the US, and easily fixed my problem.  In this case it was a matter of shortening the number of rings before PhonePower voicemail answered the call.  I had realized that GV picks up after five rings and so did PhonePower and that explained the inconsistency of which service got to the call first.

What I found interesting was when I asked the rep about the sound of reps in the background he said he was in a room with maybe 50 other support people.  I was surprised that a VOIP service could have so many subscribers it needed that many, especially since my last premium VOIP service was Vestalink that is basically a two man show.  I guess it's possible this call center handles support for more than PhonePower, but I don't think so.  Anyway, the support has been good and apparently is well staffed.