Can't Use my Phone with OBI 100 anymore....

[Miichael]

I just unplugged from the OBI 100!  WHY?  Voice quality for the receiver has become unbearably BAD....they get so many drop outs they can't follow the conversation from MY end.  I had tried ALL suggestions I received here including moving my phone away from my 'puter and router....did not work...decided I probably needed a NEW cordless phone.......I found that the latest BIG feature on some is Bluetooth so you can use a Cell phone in/thru your Cordless phone [GOOD thing too]......from reviews I wanted to get a Panasonic but found that their models would NOT support my LG800 Cell but AT&T told me that theirs would.....so I plunked out another $65 for a fancy model that hopefully I would be able to use both thru OBI100/VOIP and Cell.
   The GOOD:  It did connect up to my Cell Phone.
   The BAD:  The Voice Quality using my OBI 100 Google Voice connection is next to impossible to use.......I hear the caller pretty well but they find it hard if not impossible to talk to me because of all the drop outs. 
    I am presently using my feature filled [but unuseable] new Cordless as a "big" Cell Phone....and am changing all my contact numbers to the Cell Phone......have pulled the plug on OBI 100 experiment.

TKS

[dircom]

some basic troubleshooting steps

power cycle the obi

check your internet connection        http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php

try a hardwired phone

[Miichael]

dircom:  THANKS so much for taking the time to suggest a few things that might help me out here.....YOU definitely DID!
  The 1st 2 I had kind of already covered but that #3 - LINK is what led me to something to maybe "get my teeth" into.....had NEVER seen a site like that that offers tests of specifically VOIP setups, I needed dat, it put a name and "face" on my specific problem, causing all the voice drop outs, it's called the "jitters" [rightly so].....and it led me to find hope for a solution, I read that one might call your provider and see if they would lower the jitter buffer....and/or Cat6 Ethernet Cable vs. Cat5.   
   I called my provider 1st, Comcast, and he 1st reset my Modem, that did not work and then he said that with VOIP it often improves with FASTER BB speed and said I could try for FREE [3 months] their higher speed and see if that worked......I was using 16-21MBs and he boosted it up to 50-69MBs and WALA - - - NO more jitters!!!
   Now don't know what I'll do when those 3 months are up.....I can't afford barely my present program with them...I imagine that upgraded s[eed will boost their price $20-30.
    Sorry for long winded reply but figure others will be served by reading this info too.

Thanks again,  michael

[giqcass]

Dircom -  That speed test is a nice tool.  Thanks for sharing.

Miichael - I'm surprised you are having trouble with the lower tier.  I have 2Mbps/0.5Mbps and I don't have any issues.  It sounds like you are having upstream issues.  Do you have QOS setup?

[dircom]

I am out of town taking care of business for my mom. Of course I took my 110 with me!
She has 1 down/384 up. obi worked fine
 Had Cox Cable bump her speed temporarily to 3/768
Could not tell much diff

She also has a Captel phone connected to the router (If you know someone who has hearing problems, check it out!!)

[Miichael]

Dircom -  That speed test is a nice tool.  Thanks for sharing.

Miichael - I'm surprised you are having trouble with the lower tier.  I have 2Mbps/0.5Mbps and I don't have any issues.  It sounds like you are having upstream issues.  Do you have QOS setup?

It's ALL Greek to me....I just try to follow those "in the know"..... I believe earlier somewhere I had read about make sure your MAC Address QOS is "something or another"..... I went into the ZOOM Cable Modem settings and could not find anything like that author suggested I check.  Where and How do you setup this QOS?

I just ordered 2 short CAT6 Ethernet Cables to install and replace my CAT5s.

Sure hope to get it working like the rest of you - cannot afford the high speed broadband I already had and now they have boosted it even higher to get my OBI VOIP working w/o the jitters [going thru withdrawals] - thankfully supposed to be 3 months FREE.

PLEASE tell me about QOS setup? You can type in this address and get a peek:
    192.168.0.1-------"admin\admin"

TKS  michael

[azrobert]

I'm not an expert and might be totally wrong, but I don't think QOS will help you. My understanding is that QOS gives priory to a device over all others. If you had problems when downloading a video then QOS would help, but you always had problems.

This is a Comcast problem.  You have about 15 times or more capacity needed for VOIP. I would call Comcast and talk to a supervisor. If you have an optional provider in your area you can threaten them with switching.

[Miichael]

My Modem\Router is a ZOOM 5350......got good advice/help via email from OBI Support and was told to go into the Router Setup and change QoS settings etc........never could find anything about QoS in there.....called ZOOM Tech Support and found out why ------ the ZOOM 9350 has NO QoS settings options..............looks like I'm SOL [not again].

BEST to ALL!  michael

[dircom]

might be lucky or who knows, but at home I did nothing to the modem to make it work, but I have 25/5
and my mom's house there is an old linksys, 1/386k
did nothing to the rtr there either, just plugged in little OBI and lived happily ever after

edit
well I take that back
Turned off power to do electrical work, & had to reboot the rtr and obi to get it to work again at my mom's.

at home I have several UPS to keep devices happy during power "blinks" and outages

[sic0048]

If you are looking for bluetooth integration, you might look at the Obi202 and the OBiBT Bluetooth adapter.   

[Miichael]

might be lucky or who knows, but at home I did nothing to the modem to make it work, but I have 25/5
and my mom's house there is an old linksys, 1/386k
did nothing to the rtr there either, just plugged in little OBI and lived happily ever after

Well I hope your trouble free service continues......I too seemed to be having "happy ever after" connections initially and for several months....then something changed???

[SteveInWA]

might be lucky or who knows, but at home I did nothing to the modem to make it work, but I have 25/5
and my mom's house there is an old linksys, 1/386k
did nothing to the rtr there either, just plugged in little OBI and lived happily ever after

Well I hope your trouble free service continues......I too seemed to be having "happy ever after" connections initially and for several months....then something changed???

Hi Michael:

Well, Comcast gave you one of their classic crock of.... answers; turn a service call into a sales call.  There is no way that your issue was speed-related.  You had plenty of speed for VoIP on your old plan.  The jitter you measured with the test was/is the issue, and jitter has nothing to do with the speed increase you were given.  By coincidence, if Comcast somehow moved your service over to different equipment on their side, that might have fixed it.  I suggest, after their "free trial" ends, you decline paying for it.  You can tell them that you are reverting back to the original tier of service.  They'll beg you to stay at the higher tier, and perhaps offer you another freebie.  But, if they don't, just go back down to the original tier.  Then, if it fails, demand they come out and test the cable from the demarcation point at your house to the street.  It could just be poor quality/old/corroded cable.  OR, the problem may not come back, if they fixed it on their network during your upgrade.

[Rick]

I'd also point out that going from Cat 5e to Cat 6 cables won't make any difference.

[SteveInWA]

I'd also point out that going from Cat 5e to Cat 6 cables won't make any difference.

Roger that, Rick.  The whole thread has various "red herrings" swimming in it, but I wanted to point out the most glaring case of unnecessary expenditure to fix a bug.  The problem is caused by Comcast's service to the premises.

[Miichael]

THANKS Steve et al.......I kind of thought it was BS when their Tech told me that this Jitter problem is often caused by too slow of broadband speed and figured this was more "crap" to get more $ out of me for their next more expensive package..........and I too was thinking that possibly it was improved by whatever else he said  he was finding and correcting etc.....but he said the higher speed service would auto stop in 3 months [rots a ruck with dat]......hopefully, for once, it will.......and like you suggested, I planned to just go back to where I was and see IF I still had the "jitters" - take it from there.
     I was also looking into possibly other VOIP services IF I then will have this terrible problem.

TKS  michael