I have setup two 3cx Small Business systems at two of our company's locations. Everything is working fine. I want to setup 3cx systems at our company's other 5 locations and setup 3cx to 3cx bridges between for inter-company calls. We are using SNOM IP phones.
Each location has a DSL connection to the Internet through a local ISP. We have VPN tunnels setup between the remote locations and the home office. The primary traffic is data, and not very intensive (mostly Windows Remote Desktop connections).
Each location has PSTN lines that they use for outgoing and incoming calls.
We are using Sonicwall TZ170 firewall appliances at each location.
I have setup a 3cx bridge between these locations for testing how VoIP would work for calls inside the company. If I could give it a score, I would give it about a 70 out of 100. Although it works "fairly" well, there are still considerable instances of jitter and garbled audio--especially in the mornings and later in the afternoon. This seems to point to internet traffic. I had suspected it would be as much when I first planned the system.
I talked to our local mom-and-pop ISP, which provides internet for our main office. And basically I was told that I was SOL. That they could not guarantee priority for our Voice traffic, that's the way the internet is, "the phone companies don't want the internet to be able to handle voice calls", ...blah blah.
We have quite a mix-and-match of ISPs for our locations. Some are using Qwest, some Time-Warner, and some mom-and-pop ISPs.
So my question is: is what my local ISP told me true? Are there any options for a small business like ours for QOS for voice traffic? Is there anything I can do in the 3cx setups that might help? I truly appreciate any advice from anyone out there who has been in a similar situation.
P.S> I have been told on a Sonicwall forum that you can set the Sonicwall to prioritize out-going Voice traffic. But then I have also read that the ISP disregards this prioritization, so you don't gain anything.
Each location has a DSL connection to the Internet through a local ISP. We have VPN tunnels setup between the remote locations and the home office. The primary traffic is data, and not very intensive (mostly Windows Remote Desktop connections).
Each location has PSTN lines that they use for outgoing and incoming calls.
We are using Sonicwall TZ170 firewall appliances at each location.
I have setup a 3cx bridge between these locations for testing how VoIP would work for calls inside the company. If I could give it a score, I would give it about a 70 out of 100. Although it works "fairly" well, there are still considerable instances of jitter and garbled audio--especially in the mornings and later in the afternoon. This seems to point to internet traffic. I had suspected it would be as much when I first planned the system.
I talked to our local mom-and-pop ISP, which provides internet for our main office. And basically I was told that I was SOL. That they could not guarantee priority for our Voice traffic, that's the way the internet is, "the phone companies don't want the internet to be able to handle voice calls", ...blah blah.
We have quite a mix-and-match of ISPs for our locations. Some are using Qwest, some Time-Warner, and some mom-and-pop ISPs.
So my question is: is what my local ISP told me true? Are there any options for a small business like ours for QOS for voice traffic? Is there anything I can do in the 3cx setups that might help? I truly appreciate any advice from anyone out there who has been in a similar situation.
P.S> I have been told on a Sonicwall forum that you can set the Sonicwall to prioritize out-going Voice traffic. But then I have also read that the ISP disregards this prioritization, so you don't gain anything.
