Broadband speed

[sofiaroma]

I have just converted to Voipo from Vonage, still waiting on the number transfer. I am currently using Time Warner as the service provider (turbo broadband), but I am thinking about switching to Earth Link which is offering a promotion that would save me money, it is called Cable Max Internet, with up to 15.0 Mbps. Now, I am not very good with all the technical data etc, could anyone tell me if Voipo would work with this speed ?
Thanks!

[geoffreyetd]

Sofiaroma: I'm using AT&T U-verse, and getting speeds all the way up to 18 Mb/sec. High Internet speed should not be an impediment. - Geoffrey

[holmes4]

Absolutely, yes. More than enough for VoIP.

[christcorp]

First; the 15mb you speak of isn't the speed. That's the bandwidth. Speed is latency. This is a very important fact. You could have 15mb bandwidth, but if the latency is 200ms, then no, voip isn't going to work too well. For what it's worth, I've used voip internet phone service on "DIAL-UP" service and it worked fine.

Now, when dealing with true data, such as file transfers, downloading, etc... the bandwidth is the key. While the bandwidth itself isn't speed, the more bandwidth you have, the more data you can process at one time, thus the faster you can go from beginning to end. Voice on the other hand is LIVE. If it takes you 15 seconds to speak a paragraph, then it takes the same amount of time to get that message across whether you have 15mb bandwidth on cable or 1.5mb on DSL. Basically; if you weren't doing any other computer work, and just talking on the phone, then 1.5mb DSL is more than enough. It's better to have more bandwidth so you can do other things at the same times.

But it's the latency, and more important "Jitter" (The Difference between the low and high in latency), that is the biggest factor in successful or poor quality voip. But to answer the question, the 15mb is more than enough. Assuming you have less than 150ms of latency. That's usually the high end when voip starts having problems. Remember; you're talking. Not sending normal data. You CAN'T RESEND a voice packet. The conversation has already moved on. And if the latency is too high, you'll end up talking over each other. FWIW: Voip, at it's highest codec level G.711, only uses around 90kb of bandwidth up and down. With g.729 codec, it only uses around 25kb of bandwidth. (That's why it worked fine on dialup). later... mike....

[MisterEd]

Now, I am not very good with all the technical data etc, could anyone tell me if Voipo would work with this speed ?
Thanks!


First; the 15mb you speak of isn't the speed. That's the bandwidth. Speed is latency. This is a very important fact. You could have 15mb bandwidth, but if the latency is 200ms, then no, voip isn't going to work too well. For what it's worth, I've used voip internet phone service on "DIAL-UP" service and it worked fine.

Now, when dealing with true data, such as file transfers, downloading, etc... the bandwidth is the key. While the bandwidth itself isn't speed, the more bandwidth you have, the more data you can process at one time, thus the faster you can go from beginning to end. Voice on the other hand is LIVE. If it takes you 15 seconds to speak a paragraph, then it takes the same amount of time to get that message across whether you have 15mb bandwidth on cable or 1.5mb on DSL. Basically; if you weren't doing any other computer work, and just talking on the phone, then 1.5mb DSL is more than enough. It's better to have more bandwidth so you can do other things at the same times.

But it's the latency, and more important "Jitter" (The Difference between the low and high in latency), that is the biggest factor in successful or poor quality voip. But to answer the question, the 15mb is more than enough. Assuming you have less than 150ms of latency. That's usually the high end when voip starts having problems. Remember; you're talking. Not sending normal data. You CAN'T RESEND a voice packet. The conversation has already moved on. And if the latency is too high, you'll end up talking over each other. FWIW: Voip, at it's highest codec level G.711, only uses around 90kb of bandwidth up and down. With g.729 codec, it only uses around 25kb of bandwidth. (That's why it worked fine on dialup). later... mike....


The poster said she or he isn't good with technical data and you gave him or her a pedantic dissertation! http://www.dbstalk.com/images/smilies/%21rolling.gif

Basic simple answer: It should be perfectly fine. The amount of bandwidth you will be getting is way more than enough and will be at least as good as your previous internet provider and probably more than 90% of other users.

[gj83]

What is your upstream? I've found that is usually the killer for me. If I'm talking on voipo and presenting a Webex session they are both using up my upstream. What happens is I would hear my clients just fine, but they said I would get fuzzy or my presentation would take a while to change on their end. If you have 256kbps upstream and plan to talk and do anything else that may involve uploading you may get fuzzy. I had to upgrade to Time Warner's turbo road runner for that reason. If you just talk then you will probably be fine.

[Bink]

What is your upstream? I've found that is usually the killer for me. If I'm talking on voipo and presenting a Webex session they are both using up my upstream. What happens is I would hear my clients just fine, but they said I would get fuzzy or my presentation would take a while to change on their end. If you have 256kbps upstream and plan to talk and do anything else that may involve uploading you may get fuzzy. I had to upgrade to Time Warner's turbo road runner for that reason. If you just talk then you will probably be fine.
Part of this can be solved by using QoS on your egress device—just give VoIP priority over everything else and your calls should stay on the clear side, but your presentations will still suffer—but your case does appear to be one of insufficient bandwidth overall.

[christcorp]

The poster said she or he isn't good with technical data and you gave him or her a pedantic dissertation! http://www.dbstalk.com/images/smilies/%21rolling.gif

Basic simple answer: It should be perfectly fine. The amount of bandwidth you will be getting is way more than enough and will be at least as good as your previous internet provider and probably more than 90% of other users.

Sorry; but that's a lame excuse. And no, it wasn't a pedantic dissertation! If a person said they don't know a lot about cars, but wants to know if their car is "Fast Enough" to pull a boat, would you simply say "YES" or "NO". I give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are willing to "learn". If a person has no desire to learn, then I have no respect for them and no desire to comment. They can definitely say they don't want to learn, and they don't have to hear from me.

Here's a great example of why my post was "Necessary". You can get hughesnet or wildblue satellite "High Speed Internet" type service. You see them offered on TV. They have some services available that are 5mb down and 2-3mb up. More than enough bandwidth. But it won't do you very good with VOIP. Why? Because of the "SPEED" (Latency). It can take up to 2 FULL SECONDS for a packet of data to go to the satellite and back. On average, it's around 500ms (half of a second). That's still way too long. Voip will suck. 3g Cellular service is the same thing. You can easily get 2mb down and 1mb up bandwidth. Do it all the time. But the average latency (Speed) is around 180-250ms. That's too much time for voice to work.

Now; if you don't want to learn, have at it. And if the original poster doesn't want to learn and move on to another poster's response, that's cool. Doesn't bother me at all. But ignorance is NOT BLISS, and just because YOU don't want to learn, doesn't mean I won't put the information out there so someone else can learn something if they want to.

[ymhee_bcex]

Mike,

You are one of few people that have both the knowledge and the patience to explain quite complex topics. So, what I am going to say, is with a lot of respect! Most "non-technical" people that ask questions have high-WIIFM (http://rationalizedthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/07/wiifm-whats-in-it-for-me.html) threshold for any information. Does the poster care about the difference between speed and bandwidth? If somebody tells me that the unit of measure is megabits per second, my first assumption would also be that he is talking about speed. Moreover, to be pedantic, latency isn't speed, either - it's time!

So, I don't think it's a lame excuse! If I ask whether my car can tow a boat, and a knowledgeable person says "yes" - then I really don't need to know anything else. If that person says "no" - then I want to know what my car is missing. Then I might want to learn more about torque, or horse power - or maybe I just want to know how much would it cost me to by a car that can tow!

In most cases, the response might be "it depends". Then I definitely want to know more... depends on what? On the size of the boat, quality of the road, etc.

Now, let's bring the conversation back to VoIP.

I don't care what you geeks call this thing that ISP advertises! Bandwidth, speed - whatever. If you tell me that 15Mbps is good enough (and obviously, it's way more than enough) - then case closed. If you tell me that it's not enough information - then tell me what additional information you need. Oh, upload speed (I swear, ISP gal called it speed yesterday - but if you want to call it bandwith, who am I to argue!)... it's 786kbps (btw, is it more or less than 15Mbps? - and don't get into explanation between kilo and mega; there is a reason US is still on Imperial measures).

Anyway, what else do you need from me? Latency and jitter? What the heck is that. Oh, never mind - just tell me how to find out? I should go to speedtest.com (see, they also call this bandwidth thingy "speed", but you insist that they are wrong! Maybe it's not them, after all :p). Ok, so I got average latency 60ms, and jitter 3ms. Good enough? OK, thanks!


I help my 80-year old dad and his retirement-home neighbors all the time (by the way, most of them barely speak English); so explaining the difference between SIP and Skype is pointless. Also, in my day job I deal with scientists (and before - stock brokers) who are very intelligent - but have no interest in learning about IS (even those who spend 6 hours every day on the computer), just like I have no interest in learning about cars despite driving 20,000 miles every year! In short - remember WIIFM!

[holmes4]

Here's a simple suggestion - run the test here (http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php), selecting a server that offers "Quality Testing" (yellow pin). Run the test and look at the Connection Summary.

[ymhee_bcex]

Here's a simple suggestion - run the test here (http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php), selecting a server that offers "Quality Testing" (yellow pin). Run the test and look at the Connection Summary.
I didn't want to specify this particular server, because it's run by Voipo's competitor (but it is among the best available)

[holmes4]

Well, pingtest.com is not a competitor and can give you some of the same info.

[christcorp]

I definitely respect the feedback. Especially when it's respectful. Thanks ymhee.

The best answer to the original question then should have been: "It Depends". I bring this up because not too long ago, an individual had major voip issues. He swore that his 8mb/2mb was fine, and refused to believe that bandwidth was an issue. Turns out, he was converting the phones for his small business to voip. It's an insurance agency. 4 people working there. Turns out that even though the agents weren't doing a lot of surfing or downloading; they had a piece of software for their job that is constantly connected to a server at the main insurance company server, and it continually monitors; downloads; and uploads data. Even QOS wasn't going to help this. It didn't hurt any normal internet traffic because the application automatically uses less bandwidth as you need more. But voip is real time traffic. You can only buffer so much of it.

Anyway; I guess the answer to any person asking if they have enough bandwidth/speed for voip; is; "It depends". Depends on what you're going to use the bandwidth for.

[JacobsLive]

OK I admit it I have no idea what most of what you guys are talking about but I feel like this is the right place to get an answer.

My cable internet provider has told me that I have 384 kbps upload and 1 mbps download capability. Will this work with the Voipo Basic Residential plan?

Thank you

Joe

Technical answer to your question is YES
Practical answer is NO, you will experience a lot of choppy unclear voice experience. If you want to enjoy the freedom of VoIP, better to upgrade your internet connection.

Also do a VoIP speed test on your existing connection and copy paste the results here so that technical people from VOIPO can give some correct advise.

http://myspeed.visualware.com/indexvoip.php

Click on North America and from the next screen select any YELLOW pin that is close to your location.
Once the test is done, Click on the Graph tab from the test results, and within that box you will find "Click here for detailed analysis", click on it. A new page will be opened with your test results.
Just copy the first part of results here excluding your IP address.