[Asterisk-Users] LAN card

[T. Chan]

Dear All,

Just an experience to run by all you experts out there. I have started to
put more VOIP calls into Asterisk, most are pass-through calls and some are
terminating on the Digium card to PSTN. Whenever I get to 10 calls or more,
I would start to get choppy sound. I tried to ping other IP addresses from
the Asterisk and noticed a big packet loss in the vincinity of 7% to 10%,
but when there is no call, pinging the same IP addresses reap no packet
loss. It seems that the VOIP packets are causing congestion of some kind on
the LAN. I am using 100M, full duplex. I tried an autonegotiated switching
hub as well as a more sophisticated managed switching hub and forcing the
connection to be 100M Full Duplex, non negotiated. However, I reaped the
same result.

Question is, do you know if it is better to use Managed switch and forcing
the Ethernet connection to be 100M Full Duplex, or to use a normal UnManaged
switch and let it negotiate.
Also, I am using both a normal PCI LAN card as well as trying to use the
onboard Intel 100PRO Lan card, and in both situations, I started to get lose
packets when the number of calls increased. My colleagues, can anyone tell
me if I am doing something wrong here, or is there something I am
forgetting, or I simply need to use a more powerful LAN card due to the
demand of VOIP packets.

Waiting urgently for advice.

Thanks

Tom

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