Tunnel bandwidth to high

[alanbolitho]

Firstly, may I say that 3cx is great. This is my first go at setting up a PBX system for my work and we are loving it. However...

Can someone help me on the following two issues.

1. I have set up a remote client using the 3cx phone at home by using a tunnel on port 5090 and all works well. However, when the phone is not being used
there is a constant use of bandwidth that adds up to about 2mb a minute. When a call comes in it jump up even higher which is to be expected. My concern is that
it is using 2 mb a minute when the phone is sitting there doing nothing. Please help reduce this use of bandwidth.

2. The 3cx assistant. Works well and shows me what calls are coming in and out etc. However none of the features, call parking etc are ever available to be used.
They are always greyed out, even during a call or when a call comes in. I can't drag and drop anywhere. Is this normal?

 

[KerryG]

I am working remote this week with both the 3CX phone and 3CX Assistant running and I have no measurable bandwidth being used. My task manager shows virtually nothing other than a little blip once in a while. Looking at my Windows Task Manager, without a call I am basically at 0% - 0.01% usage on my wireless connection and on a call it jumps to 0.29%. Pretty much what I would expect.

A phone call should use about 80kb/s. When not on a call, they should use practically nothing.

As for the other issues, are you using the free edition?

 

[Vali_3CX]

I have set up a remote client using the 3cx phone at home by using a tunnel on port 5090 and all works well. However, when the phone is not being used
there is a constant use of bandwidth that adds up to about 2mb a minute.

Hi
Can you specify phone's version (the one in About) AND the PBX's (the one listed in Management Console's login page)?
Thanks
vali

 

[alanbolitho]

Thank-you for taking an interest in my issue.

Information as requested.

Phone ver 4.0.9530.0
3CX ver 8.0.9532.468

Constant rate of data as per Windows Task Manager Bytes sent per interval 2500
Bytes recieved per interval 1350

These two fluctuate a little but stay around these two figures

Also note that the 3cx assistant adds an even higher flow of data. When I turn them off the flow of data stops.

 

[Vali_3CX]

Phone ver 4.0.9530.0
3CX ver 8.0.9532.468

Hi
My advice is to update to the most recent versions, they have several (important) fixes - including in both tunnels (PBX's and phone's) - compared to versions you have.
Regards
vali

 

[KerryG]

Current versions:

3CX Phone System build v8.9908
3CX Assistant build v8.9924

I suspected it was a version issue.

 

[alanbolitho]

Thank-you for the information about the upgrade. I have completed this task and am sad to report that it made no difference to the bandwidth use.
The problem persists.

Do you have any other suggestions that may lead to a solution?

Warmest regrads
Alan

 

[Vali_3CX]

Thank-you for the information about the upgrade. I have completed this task and am sad to report that it made no difference to the bandwidth use.
The problem persists.

Do you have any other suggestions that may lead to a solution?

Warmest regrads
Alan

Hi, Alan
I will forward your issue to our technical support to check it, however, in my opinion the most relevant would be a Wireshark capture to see the network traffic coming from the phone's tunnel.
Regards
vali

P.S I attached a screenshot with network traffic on my machine (Cyprus) running a phone tunneled to a PBX in USA. Also is running a test PBX, a mail program and Firefox.

 

[alanbolitho]

Thank-you for the screenshot. It does look like your tunnel is using some bandwidth. However, as you mentioned you do have other items using bandwidth so it is difficult to gage what component is used by 3CX traffic. I have attached a screenshot of my network usage with events marked. The only things that are affecting the network usage is 3cx phone and 3cx assistant. No other programs are running. I have estimated 3CX bandwidth usage, assuming I run the phone and assistant 24hrs and 7 days a week, at nearly 2g per month of data usage. This is the amount of data I will use without taking any calls.

Please note: That if this is normal then I am ok with it. I am so impressed by 3CX I am wondering why I havn't gone down this path before. However, if I can change something in the setup that will drop the bandwidth usage down to zero whilst not in a call l would ather that.

 

[KerryG]

It is most certainly not normal. Its going to take some analysis to figure out whats going on. Hence I suggested watching it with wireshark and seeing exactly what is being sent back and forth.

 

[alanbolitho]

I have attached a wireshark capture. Not too sure what it means. Perhaps you can identify why it might be using the bandwidth.

Please note that this is a fraction of the capture and this information just keeps repeating.

 

[KerryG]

Are you only seeing this on the remote client? What about on the local network?

 

[alanbolitho]

No it appears on both sides. So in essence the 3cx client/server total transaction will equal about 5gig a month combined usage (assuming 24hr usage). This figure is with the phone sitting idle.
Please refer to the screenshot.

Does anyone know the meaning of these transactions. Please note that this is recurring over and over and very rapid.

 

[Vali_3CX]

Hi

I've checked on 3CXPhone's side - as I expected, the "idle" tunnel's outbound traffic is due to its "keep-alive"s sent to the PBX's tunnel. Even my measurements don't get the 2MBytes/min you said (in fact, I've got ~120KBytes sent/min) even so traffic is indeed quite significant. I've tested a lower rate of these keep-alives with two foreign PBXs, seems to work, it's a significant drop in traffic, but I will have to check in conjunction with PBX's tunnel, because a too low rate of these keep-alives coming from phone's tunnel may lead to disconnection from PBX's one. We will check.

Thanks
vali

 

[alanbolitho]

Hi Valli,

Thank-you for your continued interest in my issue and to anyone else taking an interest in the background.

My original esimation was high. In reality It is closer to 1.5mb per minute which includes both sides of the traffic. I pay for both my home internet and the work internet. The traffic here at home is about .75mb and I assume that it is the same at work so I calculate about 1.5mb all up.

That said I would love to be able to drop it down to the levels that you are achieving. My question is how do you drop the level of keep-alives to achieve this relatively low figure.

 

[Vali_3CX]

My question is how do you drop the level of keep-alives to achieve this relatively low figure.

Keep-alive mechanism is hardcoded, cannot be changed from outside, only by code, and I'm one of 3CXPhone's developers 8)

 

[alanbolitho]

Thank-you for your assistance in the matter of the tunnel bandwidth. If you are able to test and document a lower level of keep-alives that work I would be greatly appreciative of an update.