[asterisk-users] US-based echo test servers?

[Paul Chambers]

I find smokeping (http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/) to be very handy as 
a longer-term monitor of ping times. I have a section devoted to SIP 
peers on my home machine (see http://home.bod.org/smokeping/, click on 
the 'SIP Peers' graph). Darren raises a good point, though - those 
numbers are for the SIP hosts, not the media gateways.

The numbers here are for a linux box on a fast, low-latency residential 
wireless connection, located in San Jose, CA. You may recognize a couple 
of the hosts as UK service providers (I'm an English ex-pat).

-- Paul

Darren Sessions wrote:
> Another thing you may want to do is try a simple ping test to the far 
> end host. While this may not always be a reliable way to test lag 
> given that the far end maybe just a proxy and your RTP may be 
> terminating to another device, it still should give you a good idea 
> what your lag times are at least on the signaling end of things. You 
> could also do a traceroute to see how many hops your having to jump 
> through as well. 
>
> You could use a tool like ngrep to actually see the sip signaling and 
> copy out the media gateway from the SDP if you really wanted to, and 
> do a ping on that.
>
> I've done extensive work with international voip origination and 
> termination, and typically I haven't had any problems unless it's 
> going over satellite (lag) or there is a problem at the far end 
> (usually pdd or quality issues). 
>
> If things keep up, I'd even consider running top during a call to see 
> what kind of utilization your local server is at just to make sure 
> something isn't wrong there either.
>
> Hope this helps,
>
> - Darren
>
> _____________________________
>
> dmsessions at gmail.com <mailto:dmsessions at gmail.com>
> http://www.darrensessions.com
> _____________________________
>
>
> On Aug 18, 2008, at 10:41 AM, Nikhil Nair wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm running a small Asterisk server in the UK, just for personal use.
>> I've been experimenting with various VoIP providers for international
>> calls to PSTN numbers, particularly to the US (often California).  My
>> results, to date, have been very variable indeed, so much so that I'm
>> considering getting a suitable card and using the PSTN.
>>
>> I have found a VoIP provider with an excellent reputation, and it gives
>> very good quality.  However, I seem to get quite a bit of delay at 
>> times,
>> enough to make conversation awkward.  As the setup at the far end was 
>> not
>> completely trivial, I'm not 100% sure the problem was in my connection,
>> but I'd like to test that.
>>
>> Are there any US numbers I can call to get an Asterisk-style echo test?
>> Ideally, a California-based numnber, so I can try to call it from an
>> ordinary PSTN phone here, and compare calling via VoIP, and see if 
>> there's
>> an appreciable difference in the delay/quality.  I don't anticipate 
>> using
>> this for very long, so it doesn't necessarily need to be a free service.
>>
>> Failing that, does anyone have access to a US-based Asterisk server 
>> which
>> would allow me to make connections to its echo test?  Presumably, if 
>> I had
>> this, I could rent a PSTN number from a US-based provider, and point 
>> it to
>> the appropriate SIP/IAX address.  I expect my total usage would be 
>> just a
>> few minutes, though having the facility available for a few weeks 
>> would be
>> helpful, to allow me to play around with various options.  Again, I'd be
>> willing to pay a modest amount for this.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Nikhil.