Question: How accurate are the speed tests posted?
The reason I ask:
I asked my landlord to try to max out our bandwidth last night, so he and I both started big uploads / downloads on two machines connected to the same network. Sure enough, this lowered my VOIP quality, as expected. Running the speed test at that point showed my score at 1.6, which is below "forget the phone, try the pony express" level. Clearly, network traffic can be a problem.
The gizmo is connected to the comcast line, and the router and all computers are connected to the gizmo. Shouldn't this prioritize VOIP? Is there some way to prioritize VOIP through settings on the gizmo? This is the old, original gizmo, incidentally (circa Oct. '05).
Puzzling: I have crappy VOIP quality again now, at 12:31 pm. But tested bandwidth score is up to 3.5 (between crappy cell phone and decent cell phone call level), which is where it usually is on this connection if no computers are doing anything. Landlord's out, only computer on the network is this one, which is currently doing nothing. Turning this computer off didn't make a difference to my VOIP quality...it's bad enough that if I call my bank, the system can't understand the numbers I'm typing in for their voice prompts.
So, bandwidth quality right now is (apparently) good, if the tests are to be trusted. Computers on the network aren't doing anything, voip doesn't work. Email to my girlfriend confirms that her home phone is working fine, which is SR connected to Comcast and a few blocks from me. This leads me to believe the service itself is running fine.
So what's left? I'm thinking now that it has to be the Gizmo, right? What else should I rule out?
Georgepa: I understand what you're saying (and agree with you) on the spyware issues. I'm just very confident that that's not the cause of my problem, especially when I have the same problem while booted in Debian and with the computer turned off. I can replicate the problem by having computers on this network uploading / downloading a lot, but the java speed tests show this. I seem to *also* be having problems with the service at time (like now) when bandwidth appears to be fine, also with no other machines on the network. Logging in to the router confirms that no other machines are connected to it.
Ideas, anyone? Wait for it work again and then tell a CSR my modem's dying on me?
Incidentally, I looked at Packet8, but from reading reports online I had the impression their call quality was worse than SR's, not better...not sure I want to try the experiment. If I ditch SR I'll probably go back to using a hardphone connected to FWD + a stripped down SBC line.
D.
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Dave A. Chakrabarti
Sunrocket Review
Nirman - My dealings with a dishonest Varanasi, India nonprofit organization that ended up stealing my computer equipment when I volunteered for them for over 3 years.