 mobModerhatedPremium
join:2000-10-07 | I liked the quality For a browser based system, it was pretty decent quality. I have google voice, so when I called out, it showed as my GV number. Not sure what it displays for people that don't have an account. |
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 Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | said by mob:For a browser based system, it was pretty decent quality. I have google voice, so when I called out, it showed as my GV number. Not sure what it displays for people that don't have an account. I am a long time Google Voice user as well and it integrates nicely with that service. I made several calls and the quality was very good. And if you call someone's Google Voice phone number it can be set to go to their PC now to be answered as well as ring their landline &/or cellphone as well.
If you check the Google chat box then a call to your Google Voice number can be answered from your PC as well. And if you mouse click 4 on the keypad on the call, the whole call can be recorded and transcribed by Google Voice. |
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Reviews:
 ·Cox HSI
 ·Cox VOIP
| said by Romney2012:said by mob:For a browser based system, it was pretty decent quality. I have google voice, so when I called out, it showed as my GV number. Not sure what it displays for people that don't have an account. I am a long time Google Voice user as well and it integrates nicely with that service. I made several calls and the quality was very good. And if you call someone's Google Voice phone number it can be set to go to their PC now to be answered as well as ring their landline &/or cellphone as well. [att=1] If you check the Google chat box then a call to your Google Voice number can be answered from your PC as well. And if you mouse click 4 on the keypad on the call, the whole call can be recorded and transcribed by Google Voice. I will keep using Google voice. |
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 FBGuyyippee ki yayPremium
join:2005-03-19 | reply to Romney2012
once again Google Apps for Your Domain users get left behind. Thanks Google. |
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 tupPremium
join:2001-01-15
Port Elgin, ON | reply to mob
OP mentioned about what shows for number if you don't have a GV number. I'm in Canada and I called my cell from my computer. The incoming number was +1 760-705 8888 which apparently is from Escondido, California. |
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| Google is using that generic number if you don't have a full google voice account which atm is only available in the US. |
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Reviews:
·magicjack.com
| reply to mob
said by mob:For a browser based system, it was pretty decent quality. Now that people are making/receiving calls on their computer (instead of using a GV number as a forwarding service), the thing to investigate is QoS on your router.
Most consumer routers don't have robust QoS. You have to flash the router with Tomato or DD-WRT. Then use wireshark to monitor the traffic when making/receiving a call, so you know what you need to prioritize.
I went through this with magicJack. I had to give priority to all UDP traffic on ports 5060. That's SIP traffic, which isn't heavy.
The real traffic is UDP on ports 10000-30000, which is too broad to prioritize using those parameters. That traffic is RTP packets. Tomato and DD-WRT have L7 filters to identify RTP. So, using a rule for that works. (Although, I found DD-WRT didn't seem to prioritize the RTP as effectively. But, that was 2 years ago. It may be better today.).
Using Tomato and two rules (UDP 5060 L7 SIP, and L7 filtering of RTP on UDP ports 10000-30000) made a huge difference in quality with magicJack. (Usually SIP can be 5060-5070, so it's wise to specify the whole range. But, MJ used only 5060).
The real proof if you've got this setup correctly (and if DD-WRT is effective or not) is to go to speedtest.net and initiate a speed test. Let it saturate your connection with a file transfer while you're on a call, listening to your voice quality as you count from 1 to 20.
If it's setup correctly, you shouldn't notice any degradation in sound during the upload portion of the speed test. Only a little stutter at the beginning of the download speed test.
QoS can't control the priority of the packets being received. But, Tomato has some logic to cause the sender to slow down. It definitely works. It's easily demonstrated that it does work using speedtest.net. (I believe this might have been why DD-WRT's QoS wasn't as effective. It may not have whatever mojo Tomato has to slow down the sender. It would be worth trying it with both Tomato and DD-WRT to see how they compare today.).
Anyway, that's the key to good quality.
Another thing should be to give the Google Voice plugin high CPU priority through Task Manager. (MagicJack benefited from this.). |
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Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | said by amigo_boy:Another thing should be to give the Google Voice plugin high CPU priority through Task Manager. (MagicJack benefited from this.). I checked on how much bandwidth a call using Gmail call to an outside phone uses and it only eats up about 56 kbps in and 56 kbps out. So it doesn't put any real stress even on lower speed DSL connections. |
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Reviews:
·magicjack.com
| said by Romney2012:said by amigo_boy:Another thing should be to give the Google Voice plugin high CPU priority through Task Manager. (MagicJack benefited from this.). I checked on how much bandwidth a call using Gmail call to an outside phone uses and it only eats up about 56 kbps in and 56 kbps out. So it doesn't put any real stress even on lower speed DSL connections. I understand. MagicJack uses about 90kbs.
But, QoS made a significant difference. Just refreshing a web page could interrupt the quality of a call. Almost like, even though there was sufficient bandwidth, if different packets from different applications were processed with equal priority that was enough to push the RTP packets into a level of "jitter" or latency that it was detectable in the sound quality.
Kind of like how, even though you may only be using 20% of your CPU, giving the VoIP application High priority (through Task Manager) makes a difference when some bursts of competition occur. Maybe just due to scheduling task handling even when there's plenty of headroom which still exists.
I don't understand all the details. But, QoS made significant improvement for my 1mbs/3mbs connection. Maybe if someone has a 20mbs connection they wouldn't notice the benefit as much (unless they have a lot of constant consumption due to roomates, etc.). |
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 ·AT&T U-Verse
·Mediacom
 ·T-Mobile US
 ·Clearwire
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1 edit | reply to amigo_boy
good advice, but there is one problem with your advice. DD-WRT or Tomato are open source, are often buggy, even "official" versions and no matter what appropriate model of router you use, it may bring it to instability like dropped connections or wireless signals. Even if you restore the original firmware it may still not work as great as before.
If its possible, if anyone has default firmware leave it as it is. Just upgrade to newest version from manufacturers website. Most Linksys home routers have some QoS. Its better than using DD-WRT.
Wanna advanced router? Buy business-grade Cisco router. Most of them have SDM and don't require too much knowledge of CLI. |
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Reviews:
·magicjack.com
| said by chgo_man99:good advice, but there is one problem with your advice. DD-WRT or Tomato are open source, are often buggy, even "official" versions and no matter what appropriate model of router you use, it may bring it to instability like dropped connections or wireless signals. There are a lot of people using Tomato or DD-WRT without any problems. But, there are occasional reports of people who have the kind of problems you describe. I don't know all the causes, but the one I saw most was people who have a lot of connections open. Like torrents. They just had to fine tune their router configuration.
But, you're right that using custom and free tools with more features isn't free. Occasionally a new release is buggy. There's always the risk of "bricking" the router.
said by chgo_man99:Even if you restore the original firmware it may still not work as great as before. I've never heard anyone experiencing that (except for bricking their router). Flashing removes the firmware that existed. There's nothing left to execute. It's possible memory areas used to store configuration values could be uninitialized. Those random values could cause the new firmware to operate unexpectedly. But, just use the factory reset to force stored values to what they should be.
said by chgo_man99:Most Linksys home routers have some QoS. Its better than using DD-WRT. I disagree with that. Unless the QoS in Linksys routers has drastically improved in the last 2 years, it isn't suitable to prioritize different traffic originating from one (or more) computers.
What I recall with Linksys's QoS is that you can give priority to a specific attached device. That would be useful for an always-on, whole-house ATA phone service. It may have also had some L7 filters for gaming. But, nothing for SIP. And, especially nothing for RTP (the protocol carrying 99% of the call's traffic).
If anyone wants to try their factory QoS for something like Google Voice, I suggest they test it using the speedtest.net procedure I described earlier in this thread.
(BTW: I'm not defending DD-WRT. I'm not a big fan of it. I found Tomato to be easier to use, and its QoS worked much better. But, the downside is that Tomato doesn't support many newer routers.). |
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 AVDRespice, Adspice, ProspicePremium
join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ | reply to chgo_man99
said by chgo_man99:good advice, but there is one problem with your advice. DD-WRT or Tomato are open source, are often buggy, even "official" versions and no matter what appropriate model of router you use, it may bring it to instability like dropped connections or wireless signals. Even if you restore the original firmware it may still not work as great as before. If its possible, if anyone has default firmware leave it as it is. Just upgrade to newest version from manufacturers website. Most Linksys home routers have some QoS. Its better than using DD-WRT. Wanna advanced router? Buy business-grade Cisco router. Most of them have SDM and don't require too much knowledge of CLI. What a load of B$
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standard disclaimers apply. |
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