QoS on Ooma or Router - Advanced Network

[mthomtech]

OK ... I'm a few days into ooma now, and I have a quality question with my setup.

I have an integrated modem/router and have the ooma hub on one of the modem/router ports. All the other network goes to a separate port on the modem/router.

The reason I set ooma hub on it's own (and didn't connect the rest of the network to the "home" port on the ooma hub) was that I have a server which I access remotely, and several home automation/control devices attached to the network. When I tried going from modem+router -> ooma hub -> home network, I had a lot of issues with the network. I could not get the server remote access to work, and my network devices had a hard time seeing each other. Also, the wireless devices that were networked were upstream of ooma hub (modem+router has wireless) and had trouble seeing what was downstream of ooma. Now, I think some (or maybe all) of this may be solvable, but I couldn't figure it out yet.

I noticed with ooma hub between the network and the modem/router that ooma seemed to be prioritizing bandwith for itself. The download and upload speeds were significantly reduced on a speed test from my PC ... only when on a call. This seemed "normal" to me, as I assume ooma hub is correctly prioritizing the call over anything else. It makes sense to me to have it work like this (although the speed reduction was about half of the downloand and almost all of the upload speed, which seemed excessive).

In the original configuration, with ooma hub and the network in parallel from two different modem/router ports, I have a quality issue. I've got Verizon FiOS with 20 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up. My call quality is good on the ooma end, but those receiving my call report crackling when I talk. I verified that calling my wife from work. I can't test issue at home on cell phones (just can't tell from the cell phone quality).

I was wondering about the QoS settings. Does the ooma QoS settings make a difference if you don't have anything connected after the hub?

Do I need to set anything on the modem/router QoS settings? I'm pretty much clueless on adjusting QoS on the main router.

[Boondocs]

I have a question about this.

Currently I have the setup modem->router->ooma

When I switch it to modem->ooma->router and make a call the download/upload drops significantly. I had the QOS set upload at 256 and down at 1megs.

Question is if ooma requires approximately 60k upload to make a call with both lines, hub and scout using premier, then what should my QOS settings be on the ooma setup page?

I assume if I change the upload QOS to 130ish and the download to the same I should not have any call quality issues. But still have plenty of bandwidth for the rest of the network traffic.

I have a wrt54g linksys using dd-wrt firmware on it and using it's QOS settings and the system is working fine. My problem is when I am downloading big files I sometimes get popping from incoming voice. The people can hear me fine but they have broken voice to me. If I slow down my downloads to 1.5 megs the call clears right up.
When upload large files there isn't a problem with sound quality at all.

This tells me that the QOS settings on my router are only for the upload which is how I understand it and the ooma's QOS works for both.

What ooma QOS settings shall I use if the setup is modem->ooma->router and the ooma's DMZ port open to my router?

My current internet is 3megs down and 768 up.

Thanks

[murphy]

The QOS setting should be about 80% of your actual speed so the hub knows what it has to work with. It's 80% because none of these numbers are accurate. They vary all over the place as conditions on the internet change from second to second.

[Boondocs]

I tried several settings and with it set around 80% when I would make a phone call it would cripple my internet connection. That's why I would expect if you set it around 120k both up and down it wont affect your internet connection as much and the call quality will not be affected.

[Boondocs]

Ill play with the settings and report my findings.

[Boondocs]

Ok so last night I played with the QoS settings on the hub. I think I found the sweet spot for my internet connection.

My current speedtest are 2850 down and 762 up. I set the hub's QoS settings to download at 3600 and the up to 600.

While making a call and running a speedtest the download speeds were around 2300-2400 and the upload was around 500ish.

In the documentation is says to use 80% of your total bandwidth but when I set the QoS to that it slowed down my connection too much. With these settings I was downloading off newsgroups and uploading a large file to my webhost while placing a call. I had no pops or broken voice and the download/upload speeds were suitable for me.

Conclusion I think if people have a slower internet connection like I do they might want to increase the QoS settings for the download higher then the 80% ooma claims. As you can see I am over 100% of my internet download speeds and the hub still slows the speeds down but not to a crawl like before. I see no reason why ooma needs 20% of my download speeds while placing a call when the call only uses 100k at best.

Either way I love my ooma system and it just took a little playing around to get my settings to where I would like them.

Thanks ooma!

[mthomtech]

Any insight on which QoS changes made the most impact in call quality and which for your other network speed? Curious on the differences in the upload and download settings gave you in your experience.

[Boondocs]

The upload didn't seem to matter much but the lower I went on the QoS setting the slower my upload speeds were.

It is the download that was the big problem I had. If I set the download QoS lower it was really slow down the speeds and even if I set it to around 2400 which is about 80% of what my connection is it still slowed it down way to much.

Correction on my last post my settings are 3900 down and 900 up. I will run some quick speedtests and post them up using these settings.

[Boondocs]

Without ooma calling


With ooma calling


As you can see with my settings I still have enough bandwidth to use for my network with my phone calls sounding great.

[Darwin]

Hey, I have the same issue. I got wrt54g-tm with dd-wrt. MODEM->Router->ooma but having issue with voice quality, internet is great.

So, I switch to modem>ooma>router, and everytime we use the phone the internet really drop to a crawl. If you guys still remember the ealy 90's dial-up internet. IT'S A LOT WORSE THAN THAT!!!

Did you resolve this issue?