As you have recently encountered Voice Quality or Service Dropping, this article will help to explain the cause and how to resolve this problem.
There are three core reasons that contribute to quality issues on VoIP telephone calls.
- Jitter
- Latency
- Bandwidth
Of the issues listed above, the root cause is typically always Internet bandwidth and/or poor Internet connection.
What Causes this Problems?
Poor voice quality or breaks in service occur when voice packets arrive out of sequence, VoIP moves voice calls in the same manner that data is moved across the internet – in data packets.
For VoIP calls to sound clear, packets need to arrive in the correct sequence in real-time. An unstable or overused internet connection is typically the reason data packets arrive out of sequence creating a poor call experience. Ensuring your internet connection is stable and not overutilised is key to a high quality VoIP telephone call.
How to fix the problem?
LTE/4G Based Voice
LTE is quick to deploy and affordable, it is however a “best-effort” product, meaning LTE data routes are shared amongst multiple customers and quality of the connection can vary greatly. LTE shares the wireless link to your Internet Service Providers tower with your neighbour’s, and as such, your LTE Internet connection and quality fluctuates with the volume of traffic you and those in your area push over LTE. For this reason LTE is a suitable connection option but quality and stability can fluctuate with local over usage. We can assist you in checking, assessing and supplying your VoIP LTE connection.
Below is the United Business Solutions escalation process when encountering LTE issues at a clients site.
- Confirm that no onsite hardware or network issues are causing the issue. This is done by accessing and reviewing the local network.
- Check the settings on the LTE voice router and check the location of the router - Poor tower signal strength at the physical location of the router will cause voice and service delivery issues.
- If the above steps are unable to permanently resolve, we will consider a Sim Swap to use another network provider in your area or if signal strength is an issue we will consider adding a Yagi antenna to boost signal strength to local LTE tower. In some cases we may attempt both actions.
- Finally, should all of the above fail to resolve call quality or stability issues we will contact you via your Account Manager to assist with assessing alternatives at your location. These include, Wireless Broadband, Fibre and mobile Smartphone apps.
It is important to remember that LTE is a best effort service and is only as reliable as the local tower infrastructure in your areas. Another key point is that Voice is live and therefore any issues on your LTE connection degrade or stop the voice service. Unlike email or web browsing a dropped LTE connection terminates a call.
Fibre based Voice
Is considered the most stable form of Internet connectivity. Typically a solid fibre connection will resolve call quality issues. United Telecoms can assist you with your Fibre needs.
Wi-Fi based Voice
If you are connecting to a Wi-Fi router make sure that your connection is solid, not disrupted by walls, distance or any other factor and that the correct ports are open. We can assist you in checking the setup of your Wi-Fi router.