Can I, as an end-user (consumer), drop the latency, jitter, and "no ring tone" on my VOIP? I am a subscriber to a VOIP phone service
I am a subscriber to a VOIP phone service and on an off-and-on basis, experience latency and/or jitter problems - the adjectives enemies of VOIP touchtone phone service. I also off-and-on will experience a problem where I hear a dial tone, but consequently dead-air once I dial a number (no ring, nothing).
Is there anything that I, as an end-user (consumer), can do to fix these problems? Or, do I hold to count on my VOIP provider?
Answers:
These symptoms are usually cause by the Internet service provider, not the VOIP provider. The easiest thing you can do is upgrade your service, or switch to a better provider. Your phone also competes beside everything else on your home network for bandwidth so see if near is something that is soaking up your bandwidth. It may also comfort to enable a phase called QoS on your router. Quality of Service can minister to prioritize realtime packets over smaller quantity critical data on the exchange cards. Not all routers support this, so you might hold to upgrade. There are many factor that cause latency and jitter.
Jitter is more of a factor cause mostly by your ISP and the Internet. But, your ISP doesn't have control over how the Internet VoIP packet travel from the source to your destination. By nature, the Internet packet can take abundant different routes to and from your VoIP phone, thus the jitter issues.
QOS can also be a complex subject too. It isn't always basically a simple matter of only just flipping on a QOS switch. Routers can usually be configured to enable QOS. But, i.e. easier said than done. Most users aren't techy enough to properly configure their routers for optimal QOS for VoIP. And, consequently some ATA's also have QOS settings too. Are you using a soft-phone? Some configurable soft-phones enjoy QOS settings also. And, if you are using a soft-phone, then your PC firewall (if enabled) will also enjoy it's own QOS settings. Windows XP also has QOS handling characteristic that can be enabled/disabled. So now we own multiple devices in-series that may or may not be properly configured for QOS. This is not a simple subject or solution (at least not yet).
Ringing and audio problems are mostly cause by router port-blocking issues. If security wasn't such a big issue, and if we didn't own to put our PC's and ATA's behind NAT Routers and Firewalls, VoIP issues and problems would be far smaller quantity and VoIP would be more popular and accepted and reliable. But, within the real world, we hold to be behind NAT Routers and Firewalls, and this is where on earth many VoIP problems arise. Many VoIP services own problems traversing NAT Routers, or it causes "intermittent" traversal issues. Again, not a simple subject beside simple solutions.
Usually, the easiest way to determine if VoIP problems are related to firewall port blocking is to temporarily put your VoIP ATA within your routers "DMZ Zone". When in DMZ, adjectives ports are open and it is a biddable way to - examination - for port blocking issues.
No Dial-tone, if not due to port blocking, is usually a "Registration" issue. To receive phone call on your ATA or softphone, your ATA must maintain "registration" near your VoIP service provider. If you lose registration.... then you won't acquire dial-tone and thus, no calls... Your VoIP ATA will usually enjoy LED status lights that you should be monitoring for sustained registration. If you lose service registration, the LED's will usually indicate this problem. Reasons could be loss of Internet connection, NAT Router Travesal problems, port blocking issues, or inappropriately configured ATA.
Latency - is really an issue of where you reside contained by relation to your VoIP service provider and their POP's (points of presence). Latency is caused by "Propogation Delay" of your VoIP packet. Obviously, the farther away you call, the longer distance your VoIP packet have to travel to bring back to and from the destinations. So blaming a VoIP service for latency issues isn't necessarily the VoIP service providers doing, or lack thereof. However, your VoIP provider does enjoy some impact on this issue. The closer the services Proxy Servers and POPs are to you, usually the less latency issues you will hold. So, sometimes switching VoIP services may be the only preference you have to solve latency problems.
I own VoIP accounts with Many different VoIP service providers and carrier. So, I get different latency beside different service providers. But, sometimes you can have some control over latency, when dealing near some VoIP services. Some VoIP services will have multiple Proxy Servers located surrounded by various centre around the country and world. So, the trick is to make sure your ATA, or configurable soft-phone, is set to Register near the Proxy Server closest to where you live. The closer you are to the proxy server, the smaller number latency you will generally experience.
I use my own configurable softphones on my PC and configurable ATA for VoIP calling short a PC. So, I can pick and choose which service providers allow me to configure my own equipment and adjust my own settings for optimal performance. And, I lone use VoiP services that allow Pay-As-You-Go, so I'm not locked into contracts, which makes it undemanding to jump around between different services....