| Issues with making and receiving calls with Callcentric I've had Callcentric since the summer, switched over from Vonage to save some money, and have a pay per minute plan which up until recently has worked out well.
Now whenever I try to make a call or when I try to receive a call, the call is always immediately dropped. When making a call, the person may be able to hear me for a second but then the line is just dead. When a call comes in, I may only hear one ring and when I pick up the line the caller is gone (usually the caller will get many rings and then hang up, but I only hear one).
I've worked with the Callcentric support folks and that didn't really lead anywhere. They suggested I make some changes on the configuration page of my Linksys SPA3102, but the changes didn't help and the problems persisted. In my last communication with them, they asked for a speedtest.net report. I don't remember the exact results at the time, but I just ran one and received 26.19 Mb/s down and 0.33 Mb/s up (pretty impressive down for TW, up is what you'd expect from cable... not good). The Callcentric support folks said my upload speed was low and to contact my ISP. Well I'm sure TWC will tell me to subscribe to their phone service, but since the whole point of using Callcentric is to have an extremely low cost home phone, that would defeat the purpose of this whole ordeal.
So, with Road Runner and my pathetic upload speed, am I stuck? Callcentric used to work fine for me, the problems have just seemed to occur lately and have gotten to the point where the service is not at all usable.
Any help is appreciated. |
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IscreamPremium
join:2009-02-17
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
1 edit | Having 0.33Mbps up vs. 26Mbps down - suggests that the bandwidth is saturated and overloaded. It would be a normal thing to have just a narrow, but stable bandwidth like with some lower end DSL lines - 512K/256k or even 384k/128K - such a bandwidth would still work pretty well, especially with a low-bandwidth codec like G.729... If you could see somewhere within 2Mbps or even 1 Mbps up - it'd suggest that your line is below average, but still acceptable for voice... But seeing 0.33Mpbs versus 26Mbps - means that there is NO free room in your cable to sustain an even and stable VOIP payload required for quality conversations. It clearly indicates [to me] that at times (possibly - quite often times) there may be zero bandwidth available thus leading to voice packet losses with total packet loss at times. Even the slightest load like receiving e-mail or doing FTP or WEB browsing may stop the voice packets from being received in a proper order and timely manner (called jitter) on your line thus leading to periods of silence you described and lost conversations (there are many different SIP protocol timers "watching" for/after calls in order to prevent billing and other issues - those timers drop calls whenever there are critical interruptions in voice streams in either or both directions).
At this time it appears obvious that you need to talk to RR and see what they can do to improve your upstream bandwidth or to look for another ISP in your area... - having 0.33Mbps upstream [these days] is not bearable anyway for any kind of real time application.
You may experiment with other SIP providers - just to make sure that the problem is [or is not] of generic nature. You may also try to install Skype on your computer and see how it works for you... |
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| reply to carpo
Thank you for the post, I appreciate the help.
I did a check on the TW website and the RoadRunner package I have (RR Standard as opposed to basic or Turbo) offers "Up to 7 Mbps download speed and 384 Kbps upload speed." RR Turbo states "Up to 10 Mbps download speed and 512 Kbps upload speed", but this comes at a higher cost per month.
Obviously my down speed is much higher than they suggest at my current RR tier, but the up speed is right around what they state. Is there anything I can do from my end to better stabilize the bandwidth, or does that fall in TW's court?
I'm afraid where I live RR is among the only options for residential broadband. The other choice would be a DSL from Verizon, with their lowest upload speed of 384 Kbps (with 1 Mbps download) and a max of 768 Kbps (with 3 or 7 Mbps down). Unfortunately the cost is higher than what I am paying for RR for the higher upload packages, and none of the packages available would get me to at least 1 Mbps up. |
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IscreamPremium
join:2009-02-17
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| Well... In given circumstances, I'm not sure there is anything else that was not tried yet...
Let's check once again:
1) make sure there is no file down/up-load going on during voice conversations (switch off e-mail checkup, movie download, music playing - basically anything related to Internet activity should be stopped);
2) if you have any other computers in your home - disconnect them from the internet or switch them off;
3) disconnect from the network (or switch off) your own SPA3102 and wait for a few minutes for old registration to expire;
4) install and configure softphone program named X-Lite or something similar (you may try also Callcentric's own softphone, but it may not work on some versions of Windows, it works best under Win-XP); you may find configuration instructions on Support pages of Callcentric's WEB site or ask them via trouble-ticket; make sure it registers to Callcentric (see the registration status on Callcentric's Dashboard); of course - your computer must be equipped with a microphone and speakers...
4) make a call to 17771234567 and walk around different topics... listen and make different topic choices - make sure that your input is correctly interpreted; keep the call for 3..4 minutes by choosing different subjects and listening to them;
5) make a "live" outbound call - call some of your friends/relatives and keep an active dialog while asking how they hear you and noting how you hear them; talk for at least 5 minutes.
6) ask somebody to call your number and check the same a p.5 for an inbound call.
If the above worked well then do few more steps:
7) de-register and close X-Lite program - you have to actually exit through the exit menu otherwise the program just "minimizes" down to an icon;
8) turn ON or connect back to the network your SPA3102;
9) make sure that your preferred codec is set to G.729 (it's not as good as G.711, but it's much better than dropped and chopped voice), better even - make it the only codec for this experiment sake (that's it - remove/disable all codec while leaving only G.729);
10) repeat steps 4, 5 and 6 from the above.
Basically - I would like to isolate two things - 1st that there is no side traffic on your home network which would affect your calls and 2nd - that your SPA3102 functions well. If the steps 4,5 and 6 will return negative results - that means your Internet connection doesn't have real 384K...
Please post your results. |
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| reply to carpo
I have the same problem as you with callcentric for 2 weeks.
Have you found a solution?
thank you |
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mikefxu
join:2004-10-05
Titusville, FL | reply to carpo
How is your SPA3102 placed in your network?
Modem - SPA3102 - Router
or
Modem - Router - SPA3102 |
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