Prepping For The Holiday VoIP Traffic

In case you don’t have any third party voice quality monitoring service just yet, then the Holiday season is the perfect time to get started.

Before you get all frustrated why you’re not receiving any phone calls, or if you do get one, the quality stinks, use your VoIP testing service. You get to put a finger on the issue, and then you could forward it to your VoIP service provider. Sometimes, you can fix it all by yourself.

Your VoIP hardware could be contributing to your VoIP problems. First, see to it that your gear is at its best. Your router, ATA and cables should be of good quality; there should be no cut wiring. While at it, see to it that your hardware are not very close to one another. Routers that are too close to ATAs have been learned to cause feedback and noise.

Your QoS tool helps you get the most out of your VoIP. QoS is short for Quality of Service. You can alter this by logging into your router’s browser interface. In here, you can distinguish between data packets. You could give more importance to data packets from particular applications, IP addresses, as well as MAC addresses. Priority levels can be from Exempt to Standard and Bulk.

To be able to trigger your QoS, you must download and upload bandwidth allotment first, and you do this via your router’s control panel. Sans this, any settings that you might tweak for QoS will not take effect.

Set your upload and download allotment to about 70% of its normal capacity. You can opt for an online speed tester to come up with the correct number. You can perform this test when there are no active transfers on your network.

When this setting is reached by your bandwidth, your QoS steps in. Remember that the bandwidth eater are VoIP, file sharing, and games. If you want to prioritize voice calls, have your QoS set to prioritize your voice and video applications. For better performance, have your file transfer priority set to Bulk. This guarantees that it doesn’t eat up any bandwidth in the event of important calls.