Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

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Dizzy-K
Posts:2
Joined:Mon May 30, 2011 6:10 pm
Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by Dizzy-K » Mon May 30, 2011 6:26 pm

Has anybody ran into this problem?

I have had an Ooma telo for just over a year and it has worked flawlessly until recently when all of a sudden it started to use massive amounts of bandwidth or is blocking bandwidth or interfering. I've had the same setup for a year with no changes.

-Comcast internet with Motorola Modem
- Modem > Telo > Router setup
- Uniden 5.8ghz wireless phone plugged into phone port.
- Router is a Linksys WRT54g2

I have tried resetting and changing the MAC addy. to "internal" as per Costomer support with no luck. The symptoms are that whenever the Telo is installed into the system whether or not it's in front of the router or behind it it slows my internet from 18mbs download to 1.3mbs download. I used Speak Easy speed test to verify speeds and also a practical test of downloading a youtube video and browsing. It all slows to a crawl. After numerous attempts all day long I have failed to get a good internet speed with the Telo installed. Without it in the system my internet is blazing fast.

I don't really want to think my Telo unit it bad but I'm thinking something is definitely wrong

WayneDsr
Posts:3790
Joined:Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:28 pm
Location:Northern Indiana

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by WayneDsr » Mon May 30, 2011 7:36 pm

Go to the Telo setup menu. http://setup.ooma.com or http://172.27.35.1
Go to the advanced menu and set both the upstream and downstream to zero.
This will disable any QOS.

Hopefully this should fix it.

Wayne
ooma customer since January 2009
ooma hardware: core (hub/scout) and Telo
Lifetime Premier Member

thunderbird
Posts:6388
Joined:Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:41 pm

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by thunderbird » Mon May 30, 2011 8:03 pm

WayneDsr wrote:Go to the Telo setup menu. http://setup.ooma.com or http://172.27.35.1
Go to the advanced menu and set both the upstream and downstream to zero.
This will disable any QOS.

Hopefully this should fix it.

Wayne
Dizzy-K:
What Wayne suggested should work and should be tired first, but:
Since the Last firmware update, some people have had to set both of their Upstream and Downstream Internet speeds to about 1000 kbps or more higher, than the highest Internet speeds, as measured http://www.speedtest.net/.
A few days ago I was having problems and set in 7000 in both the Upstream and Downstream boxes, and we haven't had a problem since.

Dizzy-K
Posts:2
Joined:Mon May 30, 2011 6:10 pm

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by Dizzy-K » Tue May 31, 2011 6:49 pm

Thank you so much guys! What Wayne said was the solution. The Telo either decided to cooperate or setting the up and downstream to Zero worked. Telo and internet working for now :D

vicw
Posts:90
Joined:Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:37 am

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by vicw » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:05 am

This isn't intended to throw a damper on the 0/0 QOS setting on the Telo, but that setting may cause other serious issues affecting Ooma voice quality. In my case, this setting causes severe degradation of voice quality under certain conditions.

I am currently uploading all of my music files to the Google Music beta, which is taking several days, and it is providing a good opportunity for me to monitor Telo performance under this circumstance.

My cable service provides a nominal 10 mbps downstream, and a tightly regulated upstream rate of 512 kbps.

With the Telo positioned ahead of my router, and the QOS downstream/upstream settings at 0/0, and with the heavy upstream of data from my the music upload on my PC, outbound call voice quality is severely impacted, to the point that it is completely unintelligible. With the Telo set this way, it does not seem to reserve any bandwidth for itself, as you might expect, considering the names and purpose of the settings, and voice and data are obviously fighting for bandwidth.

I suspect that similar results would be found for users with higher upstream data capability, under the same circumstances, where data is trying to upload at a maximum available rate, and no provision is set in the Telo to guarantee at least a minimal bandwidth for itself. That should be true even for brief or momentary periods of outbound data flow from devices in the local network.

With the Telo upstream QOS set at 410 kbps, and the same other conditions, while calls are in progress, the other upstream data is throttled properly and voice quality is very acceptable. Since restoring the setting to 410 kbps, we've have several real-world inbound and outbound calls in addition to my test calls, and all have been satisfactory.

thunderbird
Posts:6388
Joined:Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:41 pm

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by thunderbird » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:15 am

vicw:
So what you are saying is that the old 80% QoS rule for a modem-Ooma setup, seems to be working again.

It's good to know.

Thanks

murphy
Posts:7554
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:49 pm
Location:Pennsylvania

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by murphy » Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:49 am

10 down and 0.5 up is NOT a candidate for using a QOS setting of 0 for the up direction.
That recommendation only works with fast internet. You need at least 2 up to even think about turning QOS off.
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

vicw
Posts:90
Joined:Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:37 am

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by vicw » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:12 pm

murphy wrote:10 down and 0.5 up is NOT a candidate for using a QOS setting of 0 for the up direction.
That recommendation only works with fast internet. You need at least 2 up to even think about turning QOS off.
I expect you are right, and that is an important consideration to be made by anyone considering use of the 0/0 setting as a panacea.

Frankly, the recommendations from Ooma for setting QOS seem inconsistent to me, at best, and any experimentation with it has hidden dangers. Finding the right setting, to provide consistently and transparently provides high voice quality, along with decent data flow, with all of the possible variables is not an easy or trivial task.

Update. FWIW, I just tried a worst-case Ooma call scenario with my setup, with QOC down and up set to 410 kbps, Downloading an HD video from Amazon, and also uploading music to the Google beta. The Ooma call was fine in both directions. The HD video and the music upload gagged a bit while the call was in process, but that was as expected, and the desired result.

murphy
Posts:7554
Joined:Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:49 pm
Location:Pennsylvania

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by murphy » Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:13 pm

You do not need to limit your downstream speed since it is 10. Just the upstream speed needs QOS. Setting the downstream to 0 should work fine. Or set the upstream to 8 (8000).
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

Lightcycles
Posts:1
Joined:Sat Jun 25, 2011 6:56 pm

Re: Ooma Telo Using massive Bandwidth

Post by Lightcycles » Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:36 pm

Hi Everyone,

I have experimented with QoS settings of OOMA when I first got OOMA about 3 months ago.
It's pretty simple and I'm not sure why OOMA doesn't provide more clear instructions for everyone.

First of all - it's best if OOMA is installed in-front of the router.
That's a #1 rule for any VOIP service if you want it to be the most reliable.
The difference in quality could be just in that 1 call out of 100 but the difference will be there.
OOMA in front of the wireless router is a MUST if you want to have the best quality of your phone service.

Rule #2 is to then properly setup QoS to ensure your phone voice quality will never suffer under any internet bandwidth usage pattern in your household. No matter how much bandwidth you have (DSL users normally limited with 3mbps in download, cable users vary from 10 to 15 to 25 mbps, FIOS is 50 mbps and higher) - there will be those few (or not so few) times when you'll be using a lot of bandwidth streaming some Netflix movies, downloading/uploading some movies, playing online games and so on.

So reserving bandwidth for OOMA calls is very important.
Below applies only to the configuration when OOMA is in front of the wireless router and thus can control the bandwidth.

The way OOMA does it is exactly as described in the first post of this thread:

- when OOMA QoS is not set and you are in a call - OOMA starts throttling down bandwidth it leaves for everything else very UNINTELLIGENTLY - it simply reserves about 70 to 80% of internet bandwidth for that ongoing call and let the rest to be used by the wireless router (your Internet). I guess the reason it's done is that with QoS is not set (empty or set to 0/0) OOMA doesn't know bandwidth capability of the internet line and by default assumes that it's the slowest line available thus reserving 80% of its bandwidth to ensure quality of ongoing call. I'm sure this not so smart behavior will be fixed eventually via firmware update but until those times not setting QoS or setting it to 0/0 is not recommended.

The way QoS works at this time is that OOMA will reserve approximately 20% of your Internet bandwidth if it's specified in your Upstream and Downstream settings of QoS on "Advanced" page. So if your cable provides 10 mbps on downstream and 1 mbps on upstream setting those settings in QoS to 80% of those values is actually INCORRECT. And the explanation is simple:

80% of 10 mbps = 8 mbps.

OOMA will now assume that your internet bandwidth is 8mbps and will reserve 20% of it when calls are in progress:

20% of 8 mbps = 1.6 mbps

So when you are in call your internet bandwidth of 10mbps will be throttled down by OOMA to (8 mbps - 1.6 mbps) = 6.4 mbps. If you receive a 2nd call and have two calls in progress at the same time - another 1.6 mbps will be used so your maximum internet bandwidth (or speed of downloads) will be decreased to (8 mbps - 1.6 mbps - 1.6 mbps) = 4.8 mbps.

So we are down to a very important question - OOMA had reserved 10 mbps - 6.4 mbps = 3.6 mbps to provide quality of one ongoing call - but does OOMA really needs so much bandwidth for one call? The answer is NO.
The highest amount of bandwidth used by the highest quality call is not more than 0.4 mbps.
You need only 0.4 mbps for one ongoing call or 0.8 mbps for two concurrent and ongoing calls (when you use both lines of OOMA at the same time). This numbers are EXAGGERATED by me - no more than 100 kbps (or 0.1 mbps) is actually required for high quality call.

So how do you setup QoS properly - without sacrificing too much bandwidth and without affecting quality of your calls?
You have to set your upstream and downstream values in QoS to much higher of your actual bandwidth.

In the example above with actual bandwidth of 10 mbps down and 1 mbps up (most common cable bandwidht in the USA) you should set your bandwidth to about 12000 (12 mbps) in downstream and 1200 (1.2 mbps) in upstream settings.
And the calculations will be as follows:

downstream bandwidth allowed for Internet = 80 % of 12 mbps = 9.6 mbps
downstream bandwidth allowed for 1 ongoing call = 20% of 12 mbps = 2.4 mbps

And here is the trick - OOMA will think that it's going to get it's 2.4 mbps for an ongoing call and will happily allow 9.6 mbps for Internet usage. But in reality your internet is limited to 10 mbps so the actual bandwidth you left to OOMA is 0.4 mbps per call which is more than enough to ensure excellent call quality.

If you have any other bandwidth - you can use the calculations above to approximate correct settings for your QoS values.
If you have DSL line and your bandwidth is limited to 3 mbps - I would make the calculations above to allow only 0.1 mbps per call to ensure you don't waste your bandwidth when you are on the call and on the internet (i.e. streaming Netflix movie) at the same time.

Hope this post will help someone to perform proper QoS configuration.

I'm using OOMA for about 3 months and so far can happily say that they provide the best value for the money if you find a good use to all the rich feature set they have. Hope they stay in business long enough to justify my purchase.

Best,
~LC

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