I have an Asterisk 1.4.2 system that has been installed for about 3 months now in our home. We converted all of our phones to SIP phones, and use two different trunk providers (BroadVoice for incoming & FlowRoute for outgoing). Most of the time its working flawlessly. But about 1/3rd of the calls that come into us complain of an echo and what is best described as latency issues. Its not consistent though. I was on the phone with an insurance company yesterday for about 1 hour and the call was perfect (I originated the call which used Flowroute for the SIP provider). What seems to be a pattern here is cell phones. When we receive a call from a cell phone, or from certain people on certain phone systems, they consistently complain of echo in the call. Its far less regular when we originate the call, which suggested to me that the problem might be with Broadvoice. But I'm now hearing that us calling back the party doesn't always solve the problem either. We upgraded our Internet feed (we're on a cable Internet through our cable company, with 12mb/s down, 1.5mb/s up) and that seems to have helped but not solved this problem. From what I can see, its some form of latency issue. We use IPCop as a firewall for our Internet access, but have turned off any IDS on it so that its running fast. I can play online computer games through the network with no issues at all, so I don't think its slowing down the traffic and if it was I'd expect this problem to be occurring consistently on all calls. Are there any tweaks that I can do with Asterisk to increase the network performance to reduce these issues? Have others who have experienced this been able to identify the issues to external VoIP SIP providers only, or does our system have something to do with all of this? At the time of the calls coming in, IPCop is telling me that we don't have more than 100K/s of bandwidth in use, and according to the network bandwidth graphs there, even with 2 people on the phone at the same time, the bandwidth never seems to exceed 300K/s, so I think we have plenty of headroom for this. I checked with our cable provider for issues with modem latency, and they couldn't detect anything. Again, I'm not experiencing any lag issues with computer games, particularly those that are heavy in interactivity, so I don't think that is the reason. Any suggestions as to what could be tweaked would be greatly appreciated. Myles -- ======================Myles Wakeham Director of Engineering Tech Solutions USA, Inc. Scottsdale, Arizona USA http://www.techsolusa.com Phone +1-480-451-7440
At 07:10 AM 10/1/2009, you wrote:>I have an Asterisk 1.4.2 system that has been installed for about 3 >months now in our home. We converted all of our phones to SIP phones, >and use two different trunk providers (BroadVoice for incoming & >FlowRoute for outgoing). > >Most of the time its working flawlessly. But about 1/3rd of the calls >that come into us complain of an echo and what is best described as >latency issues. Its not consistent though. I was on the phone with an >insurance company yesterday for about 1 hour and the call was perfect (I >originated the call which used Flowroute for the SIP provider).Very similar to what I have. Also Flowroute for outgoing but others and a TDM400 for incoming. Since upgrading to 1.6.2 from 1.2.28 or so and figuring out DAAHDI and HPEC on the new version there have been no echo issues at all. Also cable modem but only the slow version. There is a Linksys router between the Asterisk box and the cable modem. Usually VOIP echo is the other end. There should be no way other than having the volume on your SIP phones way too high to get local echo. In the past it's been suggested on inexpensive phones with this problem to take apart the handset and make sure the path from the speaker to microphone is blocked or filled with sound insulation. I'm using Aastra 480i phones and that's never been a problem. Ira
Ira writes: >Very similar to what I have. Also Flowroute for outgoing but others >and a TDM400 for incoming. Since upgrading to 1.6.2 from 1.2.28 or so >and figuring out DAAHDI and HPEC on the new version there have been >no echo issues at all. Also cable modem but only the slow version. >There is a Linksys router between the Asterisk box and the cable >modem. Usually VOIP echo is the other end. There should be no way >other than having the volume on your SIP phones way too high to get >local echo. In the past it's been suggested on inexpensive phones >with this problem to take apart the handset and make sure the path >from the speaker to microphone is blocked or filled with sound >insulation. I'm using Aastra 480i phones and that's never been a >problem. That's interesting. Our setup is almost identical to yours. We have 3 different SIP phones, one being an Aastra 480i. I have a Grandstream 4 Line one, and my wife has a Grandstream 2 line one. Both are relatively high-end phones (not inexpensive ones). The echo issues we've seen don't appear to be any different regardless of the phones in use. And strangely we never actually experience them on our end. The problem is always reported to us by someone calling in to us. This is what suggested to me to migrate my DID numbers over to them, rather than keeping them with Broadvoice. I think I might do that as a precaution anyway since its not likely to be a big problem for us to do it. The volume on our phones are not loud. I use a headset with my phone most of the time, which seems to give a better quality call to the other end, but there's not an issue with volume that could cause it. I am curious about the fact that you said after upgrading to 1.6.2, your problems went away. I didn't start with that version because it wasn't the current production version at the time. Do you think it would be beneficial to migrate to that version for me? Myles -- ======================Myles Wakeham Director of Engineering Tech Solutions USA, Inc. Scottsdale, Arizona USA http://www.techsolusa.com Phone +1-480-451-7440
if a user calling you hears echo of himself then it's the fault of your sip device/sip phone. The manufacturer must be using a cheap or an open source echo canceller ... try getting a different sip device made by some 'normal' company like polycom or linksys/cisco Martin On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Myles Wakeham <myles at techsol.org> wrote:> I have an Asterisk 1.4.2 system that has been installed for about 3 > months now in our home. ?We converted all of our phones to SIP phones, > and use two different trunk providers (BroadVoice for incoming & > FlowRoute for outgoing). > > Most of the time its working flawlessly. ?But about 1/3rd of the calls > that come into us complain of an echo and what is best described as > latency issues. ?Its not consistent though. ?I was on the phone with an > insurance company yesterday for about 1 hour and the call was perfect (I > originated the call which used Flowroute for the SIP provider). > > What seems to be a pattern here is cell phones. ?When we receive a call > from a cell phone, or from certain people on certain phone systems, they > consistently complain of echo in the call. ?Its far less regular when we > originate the call, which suggested to me that the problem might be with > Broadvoice. ?But I'm now hearing that us calling back the party doesn't > always solve the problem either. > > We upgraded our Internet feed (we're on a cable Internet through our > cable company, with 12mb/s down, 1.5mb/s up) and that seems to have > helped but not solved this problem. ?From what I can see, its some form > of latency issue. ?We use IPCop as a firewall for our Internet access, > but have turned off any IDS on it so that its running fast. ?I can play > online computer games through the network with no issues at all, so I > don't think its slowing down the traffic and if it was I'd expect this > problem to be occurring consistently on all calls. > > Are there any tweaks that I can do with Asterisk to increase the network > performance to reduce these issues? ?Have others who have experienced > this been able to identify the issues to external VoIP SIP providers > only, or does our system have something to do with all of this? ?At the > time of the calls coming in, IPCop is telling me that we don't have more > than 100K/s of bandwidth in use, and according to the network bandwidth > graphs there, even with 2 people on the phone at the same time, the > bandwidth never seems to exceed 300K/s, so I think we have plenty of > headroom for this. ?I checked with our cable provider for issues with > modem latency, and they couldn't detect anything. ?Again, I'm not > experiencing any lag issues with computer games, particularly those that > are heavy in interactivity, so I don't think that is the reason. > > Any suggestions as to what could be tweaked would be greatly appreciated. > > Myles > -- > ======================> Myles Wakeham > Director of Engineering > Tech Solutions USA, Inc. > Scottsdale, Arizona ?USA > http://www.techsolusa.com > Phone +1-480-451-7440 > > > _______________________________________________ > -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- > > AstriCon 2009 - October 13 - 15 Phoenix, Arizona > Register Now: http://www.astricon.net > > asterisk-users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > ? http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >