Outgoing voice breaks up when uploading data... QoS advice?

[se1961]

I have recently discovered that whenever I am uploading photos to Picassa my Obi202 becomes unusable-- the call breaks up to the point that I can't be heard by the other party (I can hear them fine). This happens whether I am receiving or placing a call, and on both of my service providers as well as Google voice. Clearly there's an uplink network traffic issue of some kind. I only have this problem when uploading to Picassa-- I regularly back up gigabytes of data to another service, and never have this issue.

I tried enabling QoS on my router once before, using a mac filter to prioritize the Obi, but it didn't appear to work, and it seemed to me that the call quality might have gotten worse. After reading some about the issue, I came across the opinion that we should not enable QoS, so I disabled it. Everything has been fine since, except when I take pictures.

I would really appreciate suggestions from any of the thoughtful VOIP folks who frequent this forum. I'd love to solve this problem once and for all.

PS Edited title to make topic more clear.

[sailing]

What type of service are you using; DSL, cable? How much bandwidth do you have? How much bandwidth when uploading pictures? Who else is eating bandwidth in your house when uploading pictures? My guess is that the picture upload is eating enough bandwidth to cause  your problem.

I've used QoS in the past and know it works well. I did a little reading about how you set your QoS up. It appears when using the mac address, the router only controls the single device. If you fix the IP address of the Obi and use IP control of QoS, the router will control all traffic and give priority to  the Obi. This is what you want.

When setting up the QoS, you will need to figure out how much bandwidth to assign to the Obi.

I hope this helps.

[se1961]

Hi!

Thanks for getting back to me. I have done some reading also, and see that my router has a setting for uplink bandwidth control. According to what I read, I should be capping my uplink bandwidth at 80% of the minimum uplink speed, which will ensure that the router can control the bandwidth. So I have capped my uplink bandwidth, and set a QoS rule for the Obi, giving it the highest priority.

My only problem is that my router (Netgear WNDR4500) doesn't permit me to set a QoS rule based on IP address. My OBI device has a reserved IP, but I can only set QoS by Mac, LAN, or Application. Mac address appears to be my only option. For now I'm trying that. Any thoughts?



PS I am sure that the uplink problem is only caused by uploading photographs-- the couple of times it has happened, nobody has been doing anything else in the house. It seems pretty clear that the OBI settings are not the problem.

[drgeoff]

Hi!

Thanks for getting back to me. I have done some reading also, and see that my router has a setting for uplink bandwidth control. According to what I read, I should be capping my uplink bandwidth at 80% of the minimum uplink speed, which will ensure that the router can control the bandwidth. So I have capped my uplink bandwidth, and set a QoS rule for the Obi, giving it the highest priority.

My only problem is that my router (Netgear WNDR4500) doesn't permit me to set a QoS rule based on IP address. My OBI device has a reserved IP, but I can only set QoS by Mac, LAN, or Application. Mac address appears to be my only option. For now I'm trying that. Any thoughts?



PS I am sure that the uplink problem is only caused by uploading photographs-- the couple of times it has happened, nobody has been doing anything else in the house. It seems pretty clear that the OBI settings are not the problem.

No real disadvantage to setting QoS by MAC.  In fact it is more "robust" than by IP address.  Probably not applicable in your case but in an environment with other users they can much more easily change the IP address of their PC to defeat IP based QoS.  Changing MAC is not impossible but considerably more involved and outside the ability of most computer users.

If the router's QoS doesn't solve the problem you could try using the OBi202 in router mode and enabling its QoS.

[se1961]

Okay, thanks! Here's what I am doing for now: setting a priority rule for obi202 mac address, and capping the uplink bandwidth at 80% of the lowest uplink I have recorded so far. I have done speed tests and can confirm that I am now always uploading at a lower rate than previously, and it seems that my download speeds are still working fine. Let's hope it works! (I can't put the OBI before the router, because my setup is a little wonky-- I am using OBI as a "whole house" solution by plugging Phone1 and Phone2 right into the the house wiring, and that is in a different physical location than where my cable service (modem/router) enters the house.)

[sailing]

If you didn't set the uplink speed, then the QoS would not work since you never hit its speed limit. Setting it to 80% of minimum bandwidth is safe but you're giving up bandwidth. Set it close to the max uplink bandwidth then adjust it if necessary. You could measure bandwidth at various times to see if it changes.

[se1961]

Thank you both for your help. I have finally learned something about QoS! Definitely not setting my uplink bandwidth is the reason it appeared not to work before. I performed an upload test this afternoon, and my test subject reported that they could hear me just fine. Phew. Let's hope it holds.