sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones voip quality and dropped calls

I am new to the board and really need some help. I am the COO of a small company. We went to voip about a year and a half ago. Nothing but problems since with voice quality and dropped calls. I have far too many vendors involved to place blame. We have a home office, and four branches as well as remote users from their homes. Total users are about 80. Telrad does the phones, T1s are US Lec, Sprint, local by Bell South, Verizon and more. Each time there are problems they just point at each other or say, "got me, I donno, never seen it before, it should be working". Get the picture?

Since I am not tech guy I can't answer a lot of questions quickly, but can get the answers quickly. Help please before I start shooting vendors or myself. Lots of money down the drain and worse off than when we started. Thanks much!!

Welcome to the board Volguy. Take a minute to complete your profile as to location,etc. so that we may know how best to help. Each geographic region has certain anomalies that require a different approach to getting various carriers, ISPs and such to respond and diagnose.

Thanks have done. Home office is East Tennessee. Branchs are: Middle Tennessee, Denver, Central Florida, South Florida, remote users in Il. and Ga.

Thanks for the update. Now are calls dropping at all locations or just the branch locations? This is gonna be a small process of elimination. What is the connection method to the branch offices...DSL, private network, cable modem?

I would also ask, not to step on toes here, are you using IP phones internally or onl;y to network with remote sites?

if you post a more detailed explanation of what ALL you have I can be of more help...

but to start off with- do you have QoS? If you are using VoIP, you NEED quality of service controls on all your WAN (internet) links... without it you can often get very choppy audio...

I will second what Iron says and take it a step further, rather than "you can get choppy audio..." I would say you WILL get choppy audio.

Also, like above, what type of internet connection and speeds are you using at remote sites? Are you using pure IP or a combo of digital and IP phones?

If you can, a location by location setup and equipment type list would be helpful something like this:

South Florida:
Type of system: Telrad XXXXX
Number of IP channels: XXXX
Number of Digital sets: XXXX
Number of IP Sets: XXXXX
Type of internet connecion and speed (DSL, T-1...): XXXX XXXXXK internet
Type of Router: XXXX
Quality of Service (QOS) Router?: Y/N


Thanks, and welcome to the site!

Steve

Thanks guys. I will get this info as soon as possible and be back with you. I am very grateful for your response.

Hey guys, thanks again for the help. Here goes with the wishlist of questions.
We have two seperate systems. One for Chattanooga, Nashville and Denver. The other is Lakeland and Ft Lauderdale Fl.
Type System Telrad 400 digital all locations
Number of IP channels 96 point card
Internet connection: T1 point to point Chattanooga to Nahsville and T1 point to point Chattanooga to Denver. Other offices different. They are MPLS circuts
Chattanooga trunk to US Lec Switch to Lakeland Fl, from Lakeland to US Lec and and to and from Ft Lauderdale and US lec.
Chattanooga has 3 Sysco routers and 1 Adtran
Denver 1 Sysco
Nashville 1 Sysco Lakeland 1Adtran
Ft Lauderdale 1 Adtran
All are mananged routers from providers ie US LEc and do have QOS.

Chattanooga Denver, Nashville have has 116 stations for lines phones fax etc,. and 31 IP and 32 analog
Florida, Ft Lauderdale and Lakeland have 65 stations with 10 IP 14 didital and 16 analog. About four of these are in homes with internet connection.
I was also told for whatever it's worth we ahve 8 IP trunks tied together.
See why I am confused. Sorry for the long post and I look forward to your wisdom.
Volguy

It seems like your Wide Area Network (WAN) should be sufficient. The point to point T1s and MPLS are considered a managed WAN with Service Level Agreements from the carriers. Have you performed a WAN Network Assessment? This network assessment would simulate voice traffic over your WAN and determine if the network as configured can support VOIP.

In regards to the 4 stations located at homes with an internet connection there is no way to guarantee any type of Quality of Service because they are going over the Internet. Unless they are part of the MPLS which would be very expensive.

Was the TELRAD system an older PBX that was made "IP-Enabled" a year and a half ago?