TIPS Google Voice Out intermittent Garbled

Kimberly

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Internet connection: 10 meg down, 1 meg up. Linksys ATA. I had an older installation of PBXIAF using Google Voice. Worked fined for a long time. Then started having issues where my outgoing voice would become garbled at times, then it would clear up. I would noticed that the line would go completely silent and then back, as if you quickly flipped a switch off then back on. My outgoing voice would then be clear. Sometimes it would not clear up without hanging up and redialing. I put up with that for a year or more. I decided to rebuild the PBX using the PBXIAF 11 with the new Asterisk. I thought maybe it was the old Google Voice connect and that the newer release of Asterisk would solve the problem. My ATA is set to use G711u codec. However, I have noticed the same outgoing voice problem connected to Simon Telephonics Voice Gateway. There would be nothing else on the network using internet bandwidth. Is this something that is on Google's End that I can do nothing about? It is a serious problem when I am on long calls and people started saying that they cannot hear me, that my voice is garbled. They are always clear. I know 1 meg is on the low end of good VoIP communications. However, my voice is clear for long periods of time then the garble for a short time to clear up (usually, sometimes it doesn't and I have to redial. ) I was on a seven hour conference call today and it happened several times with two times needing to redial.

Has anyone else had this problem with Google Voice? Any suggestions for what I can examine on my PBX and ATA?
 

billsimon

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I am on a 768K down/384K up DSL at home and can run multiple calls cleanly through it. Your 10M/1M connection is not "on the low end of good VoIP," in my opinion.

Over the course of seven hours of calling, can you be sure that your PC(s) is/are not fetching antivirus updates, Windows updates, cloud storage synchronizations, and so on?

Configuring QoS (quality of service) and traffic-shaping on your router may solve the problem by guaranteeing bandwidth for VoIP when the link would otherwise be saturated.
 

Kimberly

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I may look into the router and see. I am running DD-WRT v24-sp2 (08/12/10) on an old US Robotic Router. It has limited memory so I doubt I can get a newer version to install. I have limited funds for hardware. Windows Updates are turned off. no connection to cloud storage; I do all such things manually. There may be some keep-alive at times such as a ftp connection but nothing that is sending or receiving large blocks of data.

One reason for posting this; I have done a lot of searches on the issue including here, is to see if this is an issue with Google Voice, that Google is doing something on their end that garbles my outgoing voice or if it is configuration issues on my end.

And hearing the phone go dead for second and then my voice becoming clear again is something I would like input on.
 

billsimon

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I'm a heavy user of the Simon Telephonics gateway connection to Google Voice and have not seen this as something Google is doing.

The reason I zeroed in on QoS as a possible solution is that the symptom you describe of voice cutting out and then suddenly coming back is indicative of network congestion. The call doesn't drop because the signaling doesn't tell it to but the audio packets (RTP) are lost and you or the caller get dead air.
 
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Are you on Cable or DSL? Service can vary widely depending on time of day, when school is out, weekends. Published or even tested speeds (file transfers) may lie in terms of voice quality. Your internet provider can access stats on your line and check for numbers of errors. If you have a DSL you could be getting tons of line errors and not even know it.
Use a tool like : http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php
to see what going on at different times of day, check ping times to your providers. As discussed a new router may be in order.
 

Boolah

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Another thing to look at is the CPU load on your router. DD-WRT has plenty of features, but if you don't have the horsepower to support them, you can run into issues like what you're describing. Monitor the CPU load in real-time and see if you have any spikes when the audio drops out.
 

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