Bad call quality

[JoeLee]

Hi,

I am not very tech savy, but I have started experiencing issues with 3CX. I believe it might be related to my internet service provider and I am not sure what I can do about it.

Around last week I started to experience bad call quality. I can perfectly hear the person talking with no issues at all, but the person on the other end of the line can't hear me clearly at all. It's very choppy so some words barely get through or only get through broken.

Since this has happened my service internet provider has replaced the modem and upgraded it to the latest model they provide. Unfortunately, this did not solve the issue. They have also changed the fiber cabel which comes into my house with a new one that connects to the modem. It seemed to have resolved the issue at first, but the issue came back.

The issue I am having appears on the phone app, windows PC and macbook (webclient). So I don't think this is hardware related.

Once, I connect to my backup router with sim card the issue seems to be resolved, but the connection is so bad it is not reliable and not a solution to the problem.

We are a team based all over the world and other team members are not having any issues like I am experiencing. Today I did a test early in the morning at 6AM and the other person could hear me clearly. Another test at 10AM later on the same they and the issue is back again.

Does anyone have any ideas what I can do. It seems like the people the internet provider are sending are pretty clueless about the set-up and don't know where to look other than the basic trouble shooting. But, then I don't know how to point them in the correct direction either as to what the problem might be.

Please let me know if any other additional information is needed or what sort of tests I can run to figure out the root cause of this problem.

Many thanks in advance, Joe

 

[SteveITS]

Where is the server located in relation to where you’re testing?

Are you prioritizing voice traffic on your router?

It sounds specific to your location…

 

[leejor]

What Codecs are you using? Have you confirmed (3CX Activity Logs in Verbose) that 3CX is not doing any transcoding. That fact that you have a fibre connection would make me dismiss that as the cause, however you also say that the problem is not there when you use your alternative router, so now it points back to the internet connection . Maybe something changed between your provider and the destination, or, maybe they have a hardware issue, somewhere along the line that they have not yet discovered.

Do you use any SIP sets, or is it just the 3CX clients?

How long had your installation been working without an issue? Were there any hardware, or firmware changes made, at your end, about the time the issue began?

There are a number of sites that offer latency, and other tests, that you can do from a PC, it might show that there is in fact an issue with the internet connection. Something like...https://getvoip.com/speed-test-tool/ ...there are many others.
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If you have any internal switches, you might want to swap them out, just to confirm that they are not part of the problem

 

[JoeLee]

Thank you for the responses.

Let me try to answer them as best as possible.

I am in the Philippines and the host that is being used by our company is voip.gntel.eu. I believe they are located in Germany.

The internet service provider does not grant super admin access (How they like to call it) on default to set any settings there for prioritizing voice traffic. (I could try to ask for this access or possibly get a new router myself if this could solve anything or is worth testing at least)

Regarding the codecs I am not sure where to find this. (I have access to admin panel of the companies 3CX, but not to the provider settings of gntel.

3CX Activity Logs in Verbose > I don't think I can try that right now since everything is live already.

SIP Sets. From what I can see on the admin panel of 3CX, these are configured.

The system has been working before for months. On my own end I have had no hardware upgrades or other things that have changed. At least not that I can recall. I am not sure if anything was changed within the 3CX settings it self.

What do you mean with internal switches? Right now I have my computer hooked up directly with a cable to the router provided by the service provider.

Let me include the speedtest results and another voip test I found on ring central. The internet service provider can't find anything wrong with the connection on their end. Or atleast they don't know where to find it if it's anything with the backend on their end.

I would also like to add. It seems like the webbrowser seems to provide a better quality than the webapp. Also, some parts of day it seems to be alright for a bit, but it goes back to the same issue later.

Apologies for not having all the correct answers as I am no professional at all with phone systems and I am really lost what I can do.

 

[leejor]

IT could be a change in how your ISP routes its traffic to Germany. It certainly looks good between you and your ISP. If you are connected right to the router, then there is obviously not switch involved. Was the router as well as the fiber to Ethernet converter box replaced, ot is it all in one?

If you are not very technical, then you probably haven't changed the Codecs from the default. It might be worthwhile however, using the Activity Log, to see which one is being used on outgoing calls. If it is set to a low-bit-rate Codec, you might try changing all to G711 (A or U), as the default, depending on which is common to your VoIP provider.

 

[JoeLee]

Thank you for the response.

The fiber cable connection gets in through the modem and from there with ethernet cable. So I believe this is all in one.

I got a contact person from our company that handles the VoIP provider and 3CX, but I have yet to receive an answer from him. Will wait for his response and post any feedback in this thread.