ViaTalk → ViaTalk VoIP One way audio

I'm having one way audio issue with ViaTalk VoIP service from past 2 weeks. The ViaTalk device is connected via the DLink DSL modem. The one way audio issue is only for phone numbers within the same local area code. For long distance calls the audio works fine in both direction.
any suggestions?

My wife just informed me that we are also having this problem. Just started last week. As I don't use the phone a lot I didn't notice myself until just today.

Nothing has changed at my end in over a year and FIOS is my provider. Looks like a customer ticket is in order...

Do you guys have the proper ports forwarded? I wonder if you were moved over to the new system.

I always read with great amusement the classic 1-way audio problem and the inevitable postings and people tinkering with all kinds of port forwarding this that and the other. The hope is always if you tinker enough, it should start working.

As a former SunRocket employee, I've lived this dream in spades. Let's make this easy ...

(1) If your service was previously working and now isn't, it's not your fault, no amount of tinkering is gonna fix it, your service provider has a problem. Call them, cancel them, find someone else.

That simple. But what's the root cause of all this.

Easy - a crappy Session Border Controller (SBC) likely not using the only one that works, Acme Packet. What's happening is the SBC is losing track of which port it's trying to send the voice packets to you on. The classic, they can't hear you but you not hear them, problem.

Now while you under your desk resetting your router, their SBC upon some event, resets it's table and it starts working. You being the genius tinker think you fixed the problem. You didn't, it fixed itself.

Now it gets worse, Viatalk is likely sending your calls to an LD provider to terminate it to the PSTN, likely the nut jobs at Level3 who run probably the worst VoIP network in America. Unfortunately, they're the only game in town having bought everyone else.

So Viatalk's SBC, talking to you is also talking to Level3's SBC and guess what, the same port confusion can happen and big surprise, voice packets go missing.

The root cause, in summary, is (1) crappy SBC, (2) using Level3 for anything. Hence why Vonage doesn't use Level3 nor do they have any SBC (they built their own - smart).

Don't believe me? Right now I have 4 VoIP lines on my Linksysphone, 3 of them working great, the 4th from Viatalk has 1-way audio. You figure it out.

I am having the same issue for almost last 2 weeks now. Your diagnosis is 100% correct. I was thinking it is an intermittent problem as some time it works and some time it does not work. However, it happens to all phone numbers either within local or long distance.

I hope someone responsible from Viatalk should read it and resolve this issue. You will not believe that I even replaced my Linksys G router with belkin N router thinking it may be my router issue.

Level 3's heritage (check it yourself): trench digging.

Problem worsened when VoIP provider's tech support doesn't know how to diagnose customer-facing versus network-facing problems.

I hope Brenden and/or his team members may be seeing this thread. I also updated my support ticket with that diagnosis.

Yes same issue here. This is the first time that I noticed it going on ALL DAY. Someone calls me, I can't hear them but they can hear me.

Thanks for your input. In my case most of the caller/receiver of call don't hear our voice. It looks a vide spread problem and need some escalated efforts from Via-talk management to resolve this issue.

Same 1-way audio here. I have DSL modem/router with a Belkin router. When I joined VT about 9-months ago I could call out fine, but different story when receiving a call. When receiving a call the caller could hear me fine, but no sound from them. My fix was to forward the calls to another VOIP provider. About two months ago VT worked perfect and I didn't require forwarding the receiving calls. On 11/21/2008 I noticed that all incoming calls now have the 1-audio problem and worse yet, all my outgoing calls are now 1-way audio. I can only assume that VT's recent upgrades are to blame, heh.

Time to switch to Skype.com for $75/yr, unlimited talk, voice mail, and functioning caller id (number only, can be same as owners cell phone number if customer chooses). All I have to say, ViaTalk and others are looking to be in trouble real fast. Don't get me wrong, I love VT, but Skype is looking very promising.

I have yet to contact VT support and plan to do so soon. I'm am sure this will help, but all I have to say is, HEH:)

I am still having the same issue so far. Just one email from support asking about my router details although issue is totally different as explained bu sunrock.

Having audio issues here too .. earlier we couldn't hear someone on the other end. Now we can't dial out. Grr ... submitting a ticket now.

Called, but there were 51 ppl ahead of me ... will wait and see for now.

Is anyone working right now? If so, would you share the server you are using? Thanks!

Same thing here, was working find til today sometime,
now one-way audio..

Nothing changed on my setup, router not changed so
I'm not sure how it can be on my side.

Kinda odd... we'll see what happens..

magilladke, I am on phone now. Galvatron server.

Thanks for the info. I'm byob and am currently pointing at chicago-1b.vtnoc.net. I used to use the richmond server, than that had issues, switched to the newyork server and chicago w/no luck. Internet outage issue?

I haven't been following the forums real close, didn't I see they were all being sent to the chicago server or something (maybe that's old intel).

Thanks again.

Thanks for update. Please give advise about your solution if issue is resolved.

Hi,

I wanted to come in here and comment that there isn't any sort of widespread one-way audio issue/outage going on to be worried about. If you haven't tried any of the following before creating a ticket, I would recommend doing so:

-upgrade router firmware to current
-enable the DMZ of your router for the ATA's IP address (at the very least for a troubleshooting method)
-attempt to bypass any NAT in your network by completely removing it (bypass router to modem if this is an option in your setup)

Many of you know that these are some rather basic ways to troubleshoot a residential VoIP connection, but also happen to be quite effective as well in many situations. If you have a ticket in about a one way audio issue, and have already done all of the above, then please include that information and your issue can be approached from a different direction.

Lucas,

Thanks for your response. Before coming to this forum we have tested your suggested solution. Can you please comment on sunrock comments about this one way issue?

We really need a solution. Please check for your outstanding support tickets for this issue and get them resolved.

To comment on sunrock's assessment of the issues some of you have been experiencing:

Yes, I would agree that in some cases if your service was working previously and isn't now, there is a possibility something has changed on our end of things. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that changes have been made on the ISP level (or anywhere between).

A month or two ago, TW made some 'adjustments' to their service in my parents' neighborhood, and I found that the routing from their location to our servers had drastically changed. Although I knew we (VT) hadn't changed anything and my parents' hadn't changed anything, something had changed as I inevitably got the call from them wondering what was up with their phone. I also recall an ISP's fiber line being severed recently that ended up disrupting Internet Service for thousands of people who hadn't adjusted anything. Anecdotes aside, I'm just saying that problems such as this need to be evaluated from all sides to accurately troubleshoot and resolve.

It would be difficult to determine if this is a problem with Level3 without having specific sample calls to examine. We use several providers for termination and it is quite possible these calls went through one of those rather than L3. As ptrowski mention earlier in this thread, it is possible that those experiencing this problem have been migrated to our new platform (we would have sent you a notification to the email address you keep on file with us). I won't go into details as they're already covered in several other threads, but the new system routes audio differently than the old system. Depending on the equipment/ISP you have in place, changes may need to be made on our end or yours in order to get things working smoothly again. If you've tried the things in these threads to no avail, I would contact support. In combination with the changes we can make, your service may very well be back up and running in quick order.

- Josh

My opinion working for a clec selling voip...do it right the first time buy a softswitch stop using voip gateways in these rented server colo's where you dont even own the server, and using these half assed termination routes.. If you want to do voip right buy a switch put it in a centralized location and then run voip gateways off of that perhaps using a mpls or point to point connection...and maby connect to a tandem switch perhaps global crossing or hell even quest i hear they are cheap....

as I mentioned in another thread. After 6 months smoothly working, this afternoon sudderntly I met two-way audio issue, the server is newyork-1. Then I tried to change server,galvatron, megatron, grimlock don't work. however, chicago-1i & chicago-1j work, but now one-way audio issue:

when I call another VT number, I can hear, they can't. however, when they call me, both can here each other.

I have tried all kinds of ways mentions by lucas. not solved.

Of course nothing has been changed before I got the problem this afternoon

Well it's 10.30 p.m. on the East Coast and still one-way audio. Generally you'll find that you can MAKE telephone calls fine, it's when someone calls you that you get ONE-WAY Audio.

If you're phone rings, you know the connection is fine, the problem is signaling is always done over the same port number, so relatively easy to keep track of. The voice packets get assigned a port number on the fly, so that's easy to screw up. Remember in a VoIP phone call there's actually 2 connections going on. You speaking and the other person speaking. Hence if one path goes astray, well ... you're not making a phone call, one of you is simply broadcasting.

Remember an INBOUND call to you is likely coming FROM Level3 and that's where the problem is. An OUTBOUND call (you calling someone else) may be sent to any number of LD providers, hence why there may not be a problem. So you have 2 different connections and 2 different call scenerios (see how easy this is).

Viatalk is likely inundated with phone calls and emails on the same topic and just keeping their head above water is a feat to be rewarded. Sadly, they'll call Level3 whose brain dead technicians will simply say it's all working and since Viatalk isn't likely a big customer, well that was that phone call.

Hence the entire problem with VoIP. Accountability. So Viatalk is busy doing Etherreal-type traces, putting them into Notepad, sending them to Level3 email support and hoping the technician resets the Session Border Controller and things will be good for another 2 weeks or so. How do I know this? I've lived this dream and it's never any fun.

If really want to make VoIP calls, try out Magicjack (I have nothing to do with the company), it's a USB adapter BUT the company who runs the service actually is a full blown CLEC (meaning they don't have to deal with the monkeys at Level3 to get telephone numbers).

I harbor no ill will to Viatalk, they're a victim of their supplier, switching phone calls isn't that terribly hard, unfortunately screwing them up is equally as easy.

CALLING ANOTHER VIATALK CUSTOMER AS A TEST

Just one more note, the thoughts are if you CALL another VIATALK customer it should obviously work because we're all one big happy family, right? Wrong.

I'll bet $10 Viatalk is dumping all traffic to the PSTN (Level3) no matter what number you dial. It's far too complex to "check" if the number is one of their own versus the easy "dump and run" philisophy.

"But aren't they wasting money?" Do the math -- there are 475 million telephone numbers in the US alone, Viatalk has what 20k, so what are the odds you're gonna dial a Viatalk number? Pretty small, I'll take the bet.

In any event, this has zero to do with one way audio, just remember calling another Viatalk user is virtually a test of nothing.

I still have the same issue even after connecting phone adaptor directly to cable modem. The receiving person is not hearing our voice even it is another viatalk phone.

Josh,

Thanks for your response and explanation. Yes, we all together want to resolve this issue. I am having this issue without any change on my side for almost 2 weeks now. Later I changed my router from Linksys G router to Belkin N Wireless router but same issue of one way voice. I already submitted the ticket and providing my router info to support. My number is number removed by a moderator, and IM'd to VTJosh. You should never post things like that publicly ! Currently I have connected my adaptor directly with router and see how it behaves in long term. Although I cannot live without router as I have to provide remote support to my clients from home.

An early resolution of this issue will be highly appreciated.

Just to comment on Magicjack part, it does not work if you connected with vpn.

Are thing working for other people now? I just tried to call home and my wife still cannot hear me. Just wondering ...

Still one way audio here, nothing in bound..

Just my experience:

I've been using a BYOD adapter for VT for about two months, and just a few days ago started having this one way audio problem. Today I plugged in the original VT-provisioned adapter, just for kicks, and everything works fine. Also, I've been using the VT-provisioned adapter since mid-2006, and have had ZERO problems.

My brother has VT as well with the same router, adapter and isp as me except that he is BYOD. He has had been having trouble with his VT for a while.

Hope this helps