The quality of your network and internet connection is key to making sure VoIP runs smoothly if you’re thinking about or have moved to internet hosted phones. Here are a few things to look out for:
- Making sure your Internet provider has low Latency
The symptoms of latency will be poor or choppy audio. If you hear every other word when talking to someone over your VoIP phone, you may have a latency issue. This can be resolved by making sure your internet connection has low latency. To test latency, ping a major internet company, such as google.com, and see what the “time in milliseconds” shows in your ping. If your pings are higher than 80ms to 100ms, you might have a latency issues on your network. Ideally you want to be less than 30ms with modern internet providers.
- Purchasing the right amount of Bandwidth
Making sure you have enough bandwidth is critical for phones. If your internet connection is saturated by your daily internet use, you will have poor audio quality. Both download and upload speed are important for audio to work effectively. The amount of bandwidth needed is dependent on the number of people accessing the internet at the same time and the type of internet usage.
- Having the Proper Router
Purchasing a router that doesn’t work well is VoIP is a common mistake. There are reasonably priced business class internet firewalls that can track and report on latency, prioritize VoIP data, control bandwidth for different users and systems, and are designed to work well with VoIP phones. A lot of headache can be avoided by purchasing the right internet router. I can’t stress enough how valuable having access to the right data/reports are when the phones don’t work so that you aren’t subject to trial and error as your method of troubleshooting.
We recommend having an expert review your network’s design before making the leap to VoIP. JNT TEK provides free assessments if your company is considering VoIP.
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JNT TEK
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