Very pronounced "speakerphone" effect to calls?

I've noticed this since I switched to Voipo, but it seems to be worse recently, or possibly I've just noticed it more.

Calls (either inbound or outbound) have a very pronounced "speakerphone" or possibly a walkie-talkie effect to them. In other words, calls are "half-duplex," where only one party can talk at any particular time. If I start talking, the audio from the caller cuts off completely.

Has anyone else noticed the same thing? Is this something that can be corrected by VOIPo support, or just something I have to deal with until my contract runs out? I know that my previous VOIP service (V****e) did not have this issue, and I haven't changed anything else about my setup here.

Yea, I have always noticed that. Even when I had Vonage. When the other party is talking and you try talking "over" them they can't hear you .... actually they can but the other persons voice is so low it can barely be heard while they are talking. I tried jacking up the audio levels in v-Panel but it didn't help.

In the last year, I'm seeing a much, much higher instance of bad echos on non-VoIP- on POTS. I don't know why. So bad that we hang up and re-dial. Like no echo suppression at all.

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Originally Posted by MisterEd

Yea, I have always noticed that. Even when I had Vonage. When the other party is talking and you try talking "over" them they can't hear you .... actually they can but the other persons voice is so low it can barely be heard while they are talking. I tried jacking up the audio levels in v-Panel but it didn't help.

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Yeah, that's exactly it. Except for me, Vonage definitely did not have the same issue... Vonage sounded more like a traditional phone call, where it was full duplex, and you could hear the caller no matter what. Whatever algorithm VOIPo is using is frankly not good at all, and unless I can get this fixed, I'm unlikely to stay with VOIPo after this contract year.

I had a phone call where I had to actually stop in the middle yesterday and ask if the person was on a speakerphone, because it was so disorienting to hear the audio from the other end cut (almost) completely off when I made even a noise. They didn't notice anything - in fact, they said that our phone calls were some of the clearest they get.

Experiences vary. My call quality on Vonage was horrible, despite nearly a year of working with Vonage tech support to fix it. I do not get any sort of half-duplex effect with Voipo that I have been able to detect.

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Originally Posted by holmes4

Experiences vary. My call quality on Vonage was horrible, despite nearly a year of working with Vonage tech support to fix it. I do not get any sort of half-duplex effect with Voipo that I have been able to detect.

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So when someone else is talking TO you if you say "hello" they can immediately hear you even though they are still talking.

Try having someone count to 10 and while they are still counting you start counting to 10 and see if they can hear you at the same time they are counting.

Full duplex here with no speakerphone effect whatsoever. I've called cell phones, POTS and other Voipo users. Voipo to Voipo calls are exceptionally good and clear (reminds me of the Vonage commercial with the guy hanging upside down). It must be some other hardware/network problem in the mix causing the problem for some users....handsets, etc.

Same here - full duplex afaik. Faint echo at times but often goes away.

Here is a thread regarding this problem.

http://forums.voipo.com/showthread.php?t=2140

It could also be your phone that's doing it. I had a Panasonic phone that had this problem.

I don't have half duplex issues with my current phones. My current phones are also Panasonic but different model.

I use an RCA "commercial" 2-Line Dect 6 and it "sounds like" half-duplex. There aren't that many 2-Line cordless phones out there (especially Dect 6) to choose from.

Also, this is the only one I have found that has a bright blue message waiting indicator that sits on top of a tiny lighthouse on top of the phone. :) Most other phones I have seen have easy to miss MWI indicators that require you to actually look at the LCD screen on the handset to check for messages. This MWI lights up the room and you can't miss a waiting message.

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Originally Posted by MisterEd

I use an RCA "commercial" 2-Line Dect 6 and it "sounds like" half-duplex. There aren't that many 2-Line cordless phones out there (especially Dect 6) to choose from.

Also, this is the only one I have found that has a bright blue message waiting indicator that sits on top of a tiny lighthouse on top of the phone. :) Most other phones I have seen have easy to miss MWI indicators that require you to actually look at the LCD screen on the handset to check for messages. This MWI lights up the room and you can't miss a waiting message.

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Do note VOIPo does do ring splash. At least I requested it and have it.

FWIW, my wife complained the other day too

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Originally Posted by Russell

Do note VOIPo does do ring splash. At least I requested it and have it.

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What is a ring splash? How does it pertain to voicemail notification?

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Originally Posted by MisterEd

What is a ring splash? How does it pertain to voicemail notification?

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When you have a voice mail, you get a short ring as a reminder.

I just had my wife call me on my Voipo line and we counted to 10 simultaneously. Each of us could hear the other and there was no "half-duplex" effect. It is true that some cordless phones do that (I had her call on a corded phone just to eliminate that variable.)

^^
Hmmm, interesting. Thanks.

I have noticed with Voipo it pops up from time to time, I submit a ticket, they fix it, and then it comes back after a few months. Usually an email to support will get it fixed again.

I think in many cases this issue is hardware related; echo cancellation, VAD (Voice Audio Detection).

Depending on which ATA/analog phone combination or SIP phone your are using you may or may not have problems.

IMHO, the best solution for VoIP telephony is a true internet phone that plugs into ethernet. Note that wifi phones (or your Android or iPhone) can have this capability.

In short, I think this problem is up to the user to solve with the correct hardware. However, as VoIPo concentrates on ATA and not BYOD (understandable for the support issues), one is likely to experience these problems, and VoIPo is contributing by steering users torwards ATA and analog phones, which are more likely to have echo/'half-duplex' issues.

Here is a link to a review of a quality DECT IP phone. One could install this phone, using DECT cordless and a direct internet connection, without rewiring ethernet throughout their house. VoIPo does allow BYOD connections (that is all I use), but does not provide tech support for the device you choose.

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Originally Posted by lifespeed

I think in many cases this issue is hardware related; echo cancellation, VAD (Voice Audio Detection).

Depending on which ATA/analog phone combination or SIP phone your are using you may or may not have problems.

IMHO, the best solution for VoIP telephony is a true internet phone that plugs into ethernet. Note that wifi phones (or your Android or iPhone) can have this capability.

In short, I think this problem is up to the user to solve with the correct hardware. However, as VoIPo concentrates on ATA and not BYOD (understandable for the support issues), one is likely to experience these problems, and VoIPo is contributing by steering users torwards ATA and analog phones, which are more likely to have echo/'half-duplex' issues.

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Some of us are old-fashioned and like our entire house wiring to be usable. Is that doable with what you propose? If not, there's a good reason for the VOIPo approach.

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Originally Posted by Russell

Some of us are old-fashioned and like our entire house wiring to be usable. Is that doable with what you propose? If not, there's a good reason for the VOIPo approach.

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An ATA could still connect your house wiring with the associated problems and limitations. Really, cordless DECT phones are so good they are indistinguishable from your house phone wiring (in fact noticeably better in the context of VoIP if you use an IP phone). You could easily place one at each of your normal corded phone locations.

Phone wiring is on the way out. It is somewhat problematic in the context of VoIP and near-useless for high speed internet. The problem is you are making an extra analog-to-digital conversion anytime you use a digital cordless phone with an ATA. One conversion in the handset to send voice digitally over the radio to the base station, convert back to analog to go over the phone cord to the ATA, then converted to digital again to go over the internet. This is very much the wrong way to do things.

You are entitled to your old-fashioned views, of course. I find phone wiring to be of little use anymore, and do not use mine at all. The solution I described would likely be a big improvement over your phone lines. For extra credit, run CAT6 ethernet to a couple locations you are likely to want corded phone/internet access. Use wifi or DECT for the rest. You could still 'light up' your phone wiring with an ATA if you really wanted to, but would probably find yourself prefering the IP phones if you had both available to use.

We have / have had phone in the master bedroom, two kids bedrooms, bonus room, family room, kitchen, computer desk, etc. Some being two line phones one being a 4-line phone. All working quite well using our old fashioned approach with VOIPo supplied ATAs. So, I'd need a 2 line DECT base station with multiple handsets (say half a dozen) using your approach. Right? Do you have such a setup? If so curious what kind of money we're talking about.

My setup is one iPhone 3GS running Bria softphone (line 1), a Nexus One Android phone with CSIPSimple softphone (line 2), and a corded Yealink T26P IP phone (both lines). Because we already have 'smart' mobile phones I am using wifi (802.11n 2.4 GHz) for cordless, not DECT, however many have had success with the DECT approach.

The Gigaset 58 series is under $100 from Amazon. They make several other models with various features. With a true IP phone, you can have as many lines as the phone will allow SIP accounts (6 for this model).

If you look into this, note the 'IP' suffix means it is an internet phone. You also might want to take a look at Mr Graves reviews of the Gigaset models. These phones support 'HD voice', which is most commonly the G722 audio codec. While hi-def voice only works with a recipient phone that supports G722 (it will automatically fall back to G711 when not supported), the sound quality is amazing.

When we call between mobile phones using VoIP or mobile-to-home, the sound quality is amazing.

Lastly, you can still leave your ATA connected if you want. VoIPo supports ringing multiple SIP devices associated with a single DID (phone number). Start out with a pair of the Gigaset IP phones and see how you like them. Then add more handsets as needed.

Very cool! Thanks for posting your setup. Very useful to me (and I'm sure to others).

Btw, at the risk of digressing. What are the recommendations du jour for a freeware softphone running on an XP laptop? I'm looking to hear from folks who've successfully configured service with VOIPo using the credentials from vPanel.

X-Lite from Counterpath. It is the free version of Bria.