If you are experiencing call quality issues with your VoIP, there is a way to resolve those problems. Quality of Service (QoS) allows you to solve any headaches accompanying Voice over IP technology. By prioritizing your voice traffic, you can boost the clarity and reliability of all your phone calls. Let’s look at the basics of VoIP QoS and how you can set it up for your system.
Are you interested in setting up a VoIP system for your organization or business? At SE Telecom, we can provide you with the right VoIP plan and help configure your QoS to get crystal-clear calls without any hassles.
VoIP Quality of Basics
With Quality of Service (QoS), you prioritize your network traffic through the router. In many cases, administrators will use QoS to address any audio quality issues with VoIP. While VoIP has many benefits, this service is susceptible to network congestion, lagging, dropped calls, and echoes.
Quality of Service (QoS) is a method to prioritize network traffic going through a router to provide good service to most users. Administrators put QoS in place to address audio quality issues. If you want to ensure high-quality service, the data packets must arrive at their destinations in the correct order. High latency can cause many problems for those Voice over IP calls.
In most cases, the routers will handle data packets by following the First In First Out (FIFP) order. However, this can create queuing issues in your network, especially for those devices using a high amount of bandwidth. QoS works to resolve these issues by designating network resources based on the device and traffic types.
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Does Quality of Service Matter?
Phone calls with poor audio quality are unprofessional. When you cannot hear the other party (or vice versa), it can create a frustrating experience. You need a clear, crisp call quality to conduct webinars, sale demos, meetings, and interviews. An inconsistent VoIP packet can lead to a communication breakdown, leaving your team and customers equally annoyed and frustrated.
Before you can fix these issues, you need to know how VoIP works to reduce network congestion. When you set up QoS, you can improve the call quality of everyone on your Local Area Network (LAN).
Today, more people than ever are using their home networks for streaming, gaming, and work. Those devices and systems put out plenty of traffic demands on the network. For that reason, prioritizing VoIP traffic is vital for everyone.
While QoS cannot resolve all of your problems, it is the best way to turn your network around. More likely than not, you will get a better performance out of your VoIP system. Configuring QoS for VoIP will only take a few minutes of your time.
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How To Set Up VoIP QoS
Before you adjust your setting, you will want to become familiar with these network terms.
Latency
Latency is used to measure the time it takes for a specific data packet to reach the destination IP address. All networks, including VoIPs, have some latency. In many cases, voice data packets can be delayed by about 150 milliseconds.
Network Jitter
These jitters measure the variations in packet delays, like latency. The voice packets arrive out of order on an unstable network connection, giving you a poorly connected call. If the jitters are above 30 ms, it will substantially impact all the voice calls.
Packet Loss
The measurement of the number of packets lost after the transmission is called packet loss. Most voice data packets are susceptible to packet losses. If you have a packet loss over 3%, it will affect the audio quality.
LAN and WAN
These network topologies determine whether you will be able to influence the endpoints. Local Area Network has a network managed by a router. A Wide Area Network (WAN) is considered the broader network of your internet. VoIP packets will travel on both LAN and WAN to reach their intended destination.
All of these factors can affect the quality of your VoIP calls. While it might sound complicated, you can set up your VoIP QoS to improve the calls’ quality.
Three Methods To Configure VoIP QoS
Remember that every network configuration and router are different. You might want to read the vendor’s documentation before changing any settings. With that in mind, there are three ways to configure VoIP Qos.
Prioritize Network Traffic by Type, Not Device
One of the easiest ways to improve call quality is prioritizing traffic by type. That will ensure that specific devices are not allowed to use the bandwidth. The traffic will be determined by a queue, allowing you to manage the bandwidth for each network device.
Assign Traffic with a DSCP 46 To High Priority
Most VoIP devices will classify network traffic with a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) header. The header tells the network to honor those high-priority packets. You can configure both the inbound and outbound RTP packets with a DSCP 46.
Set Up Trust Mode with Strict Priority
Some more sophisticated routers and network switches will offer advanced queuing, such as trust mode. With this setting, you can configure your switches to recognize DSCP packets. Strict Priority will ensure that these packets are not weighted with other devices.
Once you have set up these configurations, make sure to power-cycle your equipment.
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Get Better Quality Calls with VoIP QoS
That is all you need to set up QoS. If that doesn’t address the problem, you may have to contact your service provider. However, many routers will have VoIP QoS settings, and it only takes a few steps to set it up for your system. After that, you should experience more dedicated bandwidth and lower latency for your VoIP calls.
Are you ready to switch to VoIP to enjoy all of those excellent features? At SE Telecom, we provide our clients with reliable communications infrastructure solutions to meet the demands of the markets. Schedule your demo today!