asterisk users - Oct 2006 - Extremely choppy sound on some of our POTS network calls; goes away with mute

We are running asterisk-1.2.4 with zaptel-1.2.7 on Fedora  Core
4-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4smp.  It is  installed on a Dell PE 2500 with 2x900 MHz
processors  and 1 Gb RAM and 1 SCSI Disk. The server has a Digium TDM400P card
which is  connected to 4 POTS lines.  The server is  also connected to a 100MB
switched LAN where we have about 20 Polycom 501 phones  with the latest firmware
updates. Nothing else runs on the server except an ftp  daemon which is never
used except when a phone reboots.
  
  For about 20% of the calls to the outside world, the voice  on the other end
of an outside line is incredibly choppy.   Enough to where we have to hang up
and call  on a cell phone. It is always the same numbers that are choppy.  The
funny thing is, if I press mute while  talking on a choppy call, the choppiness
goes away completely.
          I have tried: turning off ACPI, turning off APCI, moving the  card to
another PCI slot, changing the RX/TX gains. There are no shared IRQs. I  have
tested the lines by unplugging them from the asterisk server and plugging  them
directly into an analogue phone. Using "cat /proc/interrupts; sleep 10  ;
cat /proc/interrupts" I see that there are about 1,000 interrupts per 
seconds between the card and the CPU.
  I do not think it is a network congestion problem as intra-office 
communications as well as voicemail retrieval are always perfect. The Voip does 
not go over any routers, just a max of 2 switches with a 1GB trunk. This 
happens even off-hours when the network isn?t being used at all.
          There are never more than 2 people on the phone at the same  time and
it is definitely not an over-utilized processor.
  
  I have trying to figure this out for 2 months on and off with no success any
help is appreciated.
  
  Thanks
   
    
 		
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>
>
> For about 20% of the calls to the outside world, the voice on the 
> other end of an outside line is incredibly choppy.   Enough to where 
> we have to hang up and call on a cell phone. It is always the same 
> numbers that are choppy.  The funny thing is, if I press mute while 
> talking on a choppy call, the choppiness goes away completely.
>
>  
>
Maybe you have silence suppression enabled on your phones.  Try to 
disable it and see if it helps.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  
>

-- 
Andres
Technical Support
http://www.telesip.net

1)Can anyone tell me how to do this on a Polycom 501?
  
  2)Can you explain why you think this any why it ony happens on some calls?
  
  Thanks

Andres <andres@telesip.net> wrote:  
>
>
> For about 20% of the calls to the outside world, the voice on the 
> other end of an outside line is incredibly choppy.   Enough to where 
> we have to hang up and call on a cell phone. It is always the same 
> numbers that are choppy.  The funny thing is, if I press mute while 
> talking on a choppy call, the choppiness goes away completely.
>
>  
>
Maybe you have silence suppression enabled on your phones.  Try to 
disable it and see if it helps.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  
>

-- 
Andres
Technical Support
http://www.telesip.net

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