On Tuesday, January 28, 2020 1:50:57 PM CET Stephen John Smoogen wrote:> On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 at 20:45, hw <hw at gc-24.de> wrote: > > > I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. > > > > It is about VOIP calls via SRTP being interrupted at irregular intervals. > > The intervals appear to depend on the time of day: Such phone calls can > > last for a duration of about 5--25 minutes during the day to up to 1.5 > > hours at around 3am before being interrupted. > > UDP is called Unreliable Datagram Protocol for a reason. It can be > dropped at all kinds of places in between the two users depending on > how busy the routers/firewalls between 2 users can be.How would packets being dropped explain the replay errors and authentication failures?> Packets can get > out of order or a dozen other things which then relies on the > application layer to put the things back in 'order'.libsrtp seems to have provisions to deal with packets arriving out of order.> For voice, that > usually means a drop or other ugliness because it is assumed that if > the quality is too bad, the people would just call each other again.That's a funny idea. Phone calls just worked fine and were good quality 25 years ago, and mostly long before that. I have never expected to have to call anyone back because of poor quality in over 40 years, and I'm not going to start to expect that now. It's unacceptable, and it's not feasible, either. For example, try to call paypal to solve some issue with your account. It can take an hour before they call you back because everyone is busy. Finally you talk to someone and just after you explained the problem, the call is interrupted. Good luck calling the same person back. You won't get anywhere because your next try will only result in another interrupted call.> For the most part this works pretty well but all it takes is a > firewall to get busy on something else and you have a bunch of UDP > packets out of order and people's calls dropping.VOIP calls are worlds away from what phone calls used to be. Dropping calls has never been an option and is not an option now.
Stephen John Smoogen
2020-Jan-28 23:38 UTC
[CentOS] Centos 7: UPD packet checksum verification?
On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:56, hw <hw at gc-24.de> wrote:>> > For voice, that > > usually means a drop or other ugliness because it is assumed that if > > the quality is too bad, the people would just call each other again. > > That's a funny idea. Phone calls just worked fine and were good quality 25 > years ago, and mostly long before that. I have never expected to have to call > anyone back because of poor quality in over 40 years, and I'm not going to > start to expect that now. >I got that from watching various training videos from the 1940's to the 1970's on phone switching systems... and also the basic design of how Erlang is programmed and deals with errors. It could be wrong, erroneous or crap. However talking to phone people over the years that was how they described things. A lot of them would say that a phone call could die a billion different ways and it was a miracle it didn't happen to everyone every day. It just happened to a couple of people a day in different places because everything was coded for redundancy and the expectation that it could get bad. That redundancy and over-engineering seems to have allowed for the 'worse case they will call back' to be a viable option. The problem is that if that was real or is still the case... unless your VOIP solution has as much redundancy.. failure is going to happen a lot more and in ways that lead to the general experience of the last 8 VOIP solutions I have been stuck with... dropped calls to Paypal as you said or sounding like a Dalek if the latency or such just got a little bad. -- Stephen J Smoogen.
> On Tuesday, January 28, 2020 1:50:57 PM CET Stephen John Smoogen wrote: >> On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 at 20:45, hw <hw at gc-24.de> wrote: >> > > I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. >> > >> > It is about VOIP calls via SRTP being interrupted at irregular >> intervals. >> > The intervals appear to depend on the time of day: Such phone calls >> can >> > last for a duration of about 5--25 minutes during the day to up to 1.5 >> > hours at around 3am before being interrupted. >> >> UDP is called Unreliable Datagram Protocol for a reason. It can be >> dropped at all kinds of places in between the two users depending on >> how busy the routers/firewalls between 2 users can be. > > How would packets being dropped explain the replay errors and > authentication > failures? > >> Packets can get >> out of order or a dozen other things which then relies on the >> application layer to put the things back in 'order'. > > libsrtp seems to have provisions to deal with packets arriving out of > order. > >> For voice, that >> usually means a drop or other ugliness because it is assumed that if >> the quality is too bad, the people would just call each other again. > > That's a funny idea. Phone calls just worked fine and were good quality > 25 > years ago, and mostly long before that. I have never expected to have to > call > anyone back because of poor quality in over 40 years, and I'm not going to > start to expect that now.Just wait another 10 or 20 years and everybody will tell you it's normal and nothing to worry. They won't believe you if you tell them there was a time long ago when telephony just worked. I remember in around 1999, when a lot of companies started to hear about VoIP and wanted to implement it to save money and welcome the future, I had lot's of discussion about it in the company I was working back then. Those who new a bit more from the technology side said this can be done in a company but not widely as a replacement for (public) telephony infrastructure. Now that whole countries went all IP, just listen to police and emergency services what they think about it: only now they start to realize that having telephony which just works is a thing of the past! But hey, don't worry, they will fix it with "the Cloud" :-)> > It's unacceptable, and it's not feasible, either. For example, try to > call > paypal to solve some issue with your account. It can take an hour before > they > call you back because everyone is busy. Finally you talk to someone and > just > after you explained the problem, the call is interrupted. Good luck > calling > the same person back. You won't get anywhere because your next try will > only > result in another interrupted call. > >> For the most part this works pretty well but all it takes is a >> firewall to get busy on something else and you have a bunch of UDP >> packets out of order and people's calls dropping. > > VOIP calls are worlds away from what phone calls used to be. Dropping > calls > has never been an option and is not an option now.Telephony is like operating systems these days: a lot of things improve but not everything... Regards, Simon
On Wednesday, January 29, 2020 12:38:32 AM CET Stephen John Smoogen wrote:> On Tue, 28 Jan 2020 at 15:56, hw <hw at gc-24.de> wrote: > > > For voice, that > > > usually means a drop or other ugliness because it is assumed that if > > > the quality is too bad, the people would just call each other again. > > > > That's a funny idea. Phone calls just worked fine and were good quality > > 25 > > years ago, and mostly long before that. I have never expected to have to > > call anyone back because of poor quality in over 40 years, and I'm not > > going to start to expect that now. > > I got that from watching various training videos from the 1940's to > the 1970's on phone switching systems... and also the basic design of > how Erlang is programmed and deals with errors. It could be wrong, > erroneous or crap. However talking to phone people over the years that > was how they described things. A lot of them would say that a phone > call could die a billion different ways and it was a miracle it didn't > happen to everyone every day. It just happened to a couple of people a > day in different places because everything was coded for redundancy > and the expectation that it could get bad. That redundancy and > over-engineering seems to have allowed for the 'worse case they will > call back' to be a viable option.Maybe it took a lot of effort to keep things working, I can't tell. But I can tell that for over 40 years, there was one single interruption of the phone line when a major line was damaged due to construction work. Calls weren't interrupted, either. That changed with the introduction of mobile phones and got even worse with VOIP. It only means that providers need to figure their stuff out. It doesn't mean that less quality or less reliability would be acceptable --- especially not since we're paying over four times more for it than we used to.> The problem is that if that was real or is still the case... unless > your VOIP solution has as much redundancy.. failure is going to happen > a lot more and in ways that lead to the general experience of the last > 8 VOIP solutions I have been stuck with... dropped calls to Paypal as > you said or sounding like a Dalek if the latency or such just got a > little bad.It's nonetheless not acceptable. We are being forced to become increasingly dependent on what you might call the technology stack, and there isn't much left we could do without it because we don't have any other means and ways of doing things anymore. That involves that the technology is increasingly to required to work better.
On Wednesday, January 29, 2020 8:53:50 AM CET Simon Matter via CentOS wrote:> > On Tuesday, January 28, 2020 1:50:57 PM CET Stephen John Smoogen wrote: > >> On Sun, 26 Jan 2020 at 20:45, hw <hw at gc-24.de> wrote: > >> > > I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. > >> > > >> > It is about VOIP calls via SRTP being interrupted at irregular > >> > >> intervals. > >> > >> > The intervals appear to depend on the time of day: Such phone calls > >> > >> can > >> > >> > last for a duration of about 5--25 minutes during the day to up to 1.5 > >> > hours at around 3am before being interrupted. > >> > >> UDP is called Unreliable Datagram Protocol for a reason. It can be > >> dropped at all kinds of places in between the two users depending on > >> how busy the routers/firewalls between 2 users can be. > > > > How would packets being dropped explain the replay errors and > > authentication > > failures? > > > >> Packets can get > >> out of order or a dozen other things which then relies on the > >> application layer to put the things back in 'order'. > > > > libsrtp seems to have provisions to deal with packets arriving out of > > order. > > > >> For voice, that > >> usually means a drop or other ugliness because it is assumed that if > >> the quality is too bad, the people would just call each other again. > > > > That's a funny idea. Phone calls just worked fine and were good quality > > 25 > > years ago, and mostly long before that. I have never expected to have to > > call > > anyone back because of poor quality in over 40 years, and I'm not going to > > start to expect that now. > > Just wait another 10 or 20 years and everybody will tell you it's normal > and nothing to worry. They won't believe you if you tell them there was a > time long ago when telephony just worked.All things will be a lot worse in 10 or 20 years.> I remember in around 1999, when a lot of companies started to hear about > VoIP and wanted to implement it to save money and welcome the future, I > had lot's of discussion about it in the company I was working back then. > Those who new a bit more from the technology side said this can be done in > a company but not widely as a replacement for (public) telephony > infrastructure. Now that whole countries went all IP, just listen to > police and emergency services what they think about it: only now they > start to realize that having telephony which just works is a thing of the > past!It's still something that just needs to work. And 1999? Maybe it's because this country has kinda detached itself from technology and remains behind further and further, currently about 30 years, but in 1999 nobody has heard of VOIP. That started in 2018, and people expect phone to just work. If anything, it should get better, not worse.> But hey, don't worry, they will fix it with "the Cloud" :-)It only means that we can't do anything anymore.> > It's unacceptable, and it's not feasible, either. For example, try to > > call > > paypal to solve some issue with your account. It can take an hour before > > they > > call you back because everyone is busy. Finally you talk to someone and > > just > > after you explained the problem, the call is interrupted. Good luck > > calling > > the same person back. You won't get anywhere because your next try will > > only > > result in another interrupted call. > > > >> For the most part this works pretty well but all it takes is a > >> firewall to get busy on something else and you have a bunch of UDP > >> packets out of order and people's calls dropping. > > > > VOIP calls are worlds away from what phone calls used to be. Dropping > > calls > > has never been an option and is not an option now. > > Telephony is like operating systems these days: a lot of things improve > but not everything...What has actually improved? In 1999, I could make a phone call whenever I wanted to, and it worked just fine. In 2020, I can't make a phone call at all because it will be interrupted before I'd get anywhere with it and it's just embarrassing. What am I supposed to do? Travel to paypal to talk to someone in person? At least we can still travel, and that is about to change, too.