To help you test the far-end quality of voice
we have introduced the 1744 number which will dial directly into your
voicemail - After you call leave a message, the message will be sent to
your email inbox - The voicemail message will give you a good
indication of the quality of your speech when it reaches the called
party.
Bad quality speech for the called party is normally one of two problems
1) A problem with the up-link broadband connection (data being sent from you).
2) A phone problem (this is most likely where you are using a soft-phone)
1) A problem with the up-link broadband connection
As
residential broadband connections are typically asymmetric ( download
and upload different speeds ), with slower speeds for upload, the sound
quality you hear (download) can be much better than the quality heard
by the called party (upload).
This can be caused by
A) You are using a high bandwidh codec.
Solution:
Change to a lower bandwidth codec (see you phone manual). G729 is the
recommended, if your phone does not support G729 try Speex or ILBC.
B) Your limited upload capacity.
Solution: Upgrade your broadband connection to a faster speed or change broadband service provider.
C) The quality of your broadband connection. If you find the speech
quality reduces are at different times of the day or it's recently
started happening this is normally the problem.
Solution: Talk to your broadband service provider otherwise change.
D)
Bandwidth usage on your local network. If you are surfing, filesharing
or have any other PC activity at the same time as your voice call.
Virusus infecting pc's connected to your network can also cause
problems by sending large amounts of mail.
Solution: First
disconnect all other devices/computers from your local network (router)
and test your calls, if you are using a soft-phone then scan your PC
for viruses. If you need to surf and talk at the same time, get a
router which supports quality of service (QoS) such as one of the ez-connect VOIP gateways.
2) A phone problem (this is most likely where you are using a soft-phone)
If you are using a soft-phone the problem can be
A) You are not using a good quality microphone.
Solution: change microphone
B)
Your PC's resources. The speech must be coded/decoded by you PC using
alot of system resources, if your PC has inadequate resources then this
can degrade the quality of speech.
Solution: change codec (different codecs require more/less CPU power). Change to a different soft-phone. Change your PC.