[Asterisk-Users] VoIP Provider problems

[Johnathan Corgan]

Joseph Gutowski wrote:

> I installed PingPlotter, switched to UDP just to be the same as you,
> and ran it against sip.broadvoice.com. Absolutley no problems, no
> packet loss at all.

Well, that's good to hear.

> I then used the 63.251.209.126 that you posted, and it was awful (at
> least it appears awful). I have reliable 20% packet loss at each of
> two Verio hops (nothing lost at the far end).

Okay, happy to see independent confirmation of this.

> I did traceroutes on all of the Broadvoice proxies, and I didn't get
> pushed through PNAP. I wonder why your packets seem to reliably
> following that path when it's so bad. I mean the whole point of
> routing through PNAP is to increase quality, no? And from my
> understanding they're supposed to have a magic fuzzy logic to
> dynamically reroute around problems. Your results suggest a more
> widespread problem than one customer can't have nice VoIP calls --
> you'd think Sprint wouldn't be routing through PNAP.

Well, you're right, Sprint is going through sprintlink.net -> PNAP -> 
BV, no route changes during the day since I started.  Not a lot I can do 
about that, unfortunately.

> And I also hope your VoIP connection is wired if you're getting 9-10%
> loss on the wireless before you even leave the LAN. If you're starting
> off with a loss, it's just going to make the natural losses on the net
> have an even worse effect.

It appears I happened to pick the most congested time to measure, and 
got 8-9% packet loss on my Sprint uplink.  That's the "wireless", as in 
a fixed wireless MMDS rooftop dish link to a mountain top about 15 miles 
away.   It turns out that off peak there is zero loss over this link and 
typically it is only about 2-3% loss.  So it's not as bad as it first 
seemed.  On the premises it is all wired and first router is always zero 
packet loss.

As I write this the trailing 10 minutes of data shows an aggregate 9% 
loss to BV with 3% of that on the Sprint BBD uplink side.  This is much 
better than my first tests, and my SIP calls through broadvoice show the 
difference too.

Anyway, I haven't tried the other broadvoice proxies yet, I'm really 
hoping at least one doesn't have PNAP on its path. (At least I can be 
thankful I haven't run into any of the weird NAT or authentication 
issues that have been discussed--worked great first time.)

At the time I got this wireless link (which with a 4Mbps downlink, is 
pretty sweet for typical traffic patterns), there was no DSL in my area. 
  Now SBC has service, but I've yet to really look into it.

(As an aside, got my TDM400 card today, installed, and have the FXS port 
working with an analog phone.  Woohoo.  FXO next!)

-Johnathan