Netgear TA612V Braodband Voice Adapter

garethdphillips · 21-02-2006, 22:05

Does anybody have this device (sold for use on the SipGate service in the UK) ?

I notice it supports a basic form of Quality of Service whereby it is supposed to prioritise voice data over other data should the link be running at capacity. I am running my Voip service with my link always at capacity (in the upload direction) as I have the 1MB service and 100Kbps (or 11.6) is about what is required by a Voip conversation. This means that if anything happens on my connection I often get breakup in the call (or the other party hears me breaking up).

THe Qos setting requires me to specify my WAN connection speed, which is around 960kbps according to all the speed tests. Problem is, my upload is clearly nothing like this, so which speed do I need to specify? If I put 960kbps I suffer the occasional breakup (but I shouldnt if the router was managing to give Voip priority) and if I specify 11.6 it complains that the MTU doesnt match.

SOrry for the geeky question, but any ideas?

etccarmageddon · 21-02-2006, 22:19

I think your problem is more to do with you being on too low a tier for voip - I am running a linksys router with voip and QOS running but still have poor call quality because I'm also on 1mb.

garethdphillips · 21-02-2006, 22:37

Your right, but with nothing elese connected to the router, the call clarity is usually perfect, with virtually no problems. The issue is that the upload bandwith is maxed out maintaining the call. If something "unknown" happens on my line Id therfore expect problems, but Id like to think I can fine tune the QOS to do a better job, as there is room for the Voip if the router is able to drop everything else when required. I assume it needs an accurate idea of what the "space" on the pipe is to do this. As I say, upload and download speeds are very different, and the router only allows for one speed to be entered.

As Im so close to the threshold I should upgrade to 2Mbs but Im cheap! ! and if NTL werent so cheap and gave 1MB customers 150Kbps or 200Kbps upstream (which isnt too much to ask.. come on 100Kbps is LAME) I wouldnt have this problem!

**Graham M** · 22-02-2006, 00:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by garethdphillips

As Im so close to the threshold I should upgrade to 2Mbs but Im cheap! ! and if NTL werent so cheap and gave 1MB customers 150Kbps or 200Kbps upstream (which isnt too much to ask.. come on 100Kbps is LAME) I wouldnt have this problem!

You gave the answer to your problem right there, the value of your upload ought to be entered into the QoS, the tiers are there, upload bandwidth is expensive and is difficult to aqquire on NTL's current network setup hence the 100k limit, youre lucky it used to be something like 64k

22-02-2006, 00:06

You should also be able to choose a different codec that uses less bandwidth.

garethdphillips · 22-02-2006, 08:56

Thanks for that. If I set the upload to 11 or 12 (which is the speed in Kbps) It allows me to set it, but complains that the MTU of 1500 is mismatched. Any ideas there?

It's a shame ADSL customers get 256 upload even on the 512K service. I guess NTL will improve this later in the year.

**Graham M** · 22-02-2006, 13:17

The MTU is the size of the packet fragmentation iirc, so try setting the MTU to around 1100 or 1200 (you can always reset it if it causes problems)