Call quality tickets can be caused by a multitude of possible issues. Here we will explore some of the common causes and resolutions for call quality

For customers with managed T1 circuits, we are responsible ensuring call quality since we have direct control over their Broadband connection. For customers without a managed circuit from EvolveIP (Bring Your Own Broadband) we are unable to ensure the same level of quality. Also, we tag our VOIP packets for QoS but some ISPs ignore these tags and voice data is treated the same as all other traffic. Therefore, with call quality tickets, it is a good idea to check Nagios. Especially for customers with managed circuits, we can check for latency or packet loss and open a ticket with the carrier to investigate. For customers without managed circuits, we can still look at packet loss and latency but then we should advise them with out findings so they can take that information to their ISPs.


Questions to Ask

You should ask these questions while on the phone with the customer to gather as much information as you can:

  • How many users is this affecting?
    • One user - the issue may be cabling. Ask customer to verify or swap cables or plugging the phone into a port with a working phone. 
    • Multiple user
    • All users
  • Obtain a call example - Call Examples have to be 48 hours or fresher!
    • Caller
    • Callee
    • Time/Date (including Time Zone)
    • Result: describe the issue
      • Choppiness - packet loss, which may be caused by jitter or over utilized bandwidth
      • No audio on either side
      • call drop - examine the SIP codes for call example
      • echoes - usually latency
      • "robotic" sounds/other sound quality issues - usually jitter or out of order packets
  • Which side of the call is this issue happening?
    • Caller side: issue is on the receive side of the WAN and/or the phone
    • Callee side: issue is on the transmit side of the phone or the WAN. (Note: This is often caused with DSL customers that have a small amount of "up" bandwidth.)
    • Both: look in both directions
  • Does this happen at a certain time or at all times?
    • If at certain times, could be call volume (bandwidth of connection) or network issues (network saturation or QoS issues)

Call Example Verbiage:

In order to facilitate troubleshooting the reported issue, a call example is required.

Please provided us with a specific recent call example (less than 48 hours) depicting the reported issue, so that we can verify its routing and quality.

Please include the following information.

Caller number:
Callee number:
Date and time (including time zone):
Issue description:

Your ticket is now being placed on a HOLD status pending the requested information.


Investigation

With a call example, find the call in Palladion and document the call example and PCAP in the ticket.

Once a call has been located in Palladion, double click on the call to bring up information on that call. You can download the PCAP by pressing on the PCAP button on the bottom:

Common Issues:

MOSgraphinator - http://mosgraphinator.evolveip.net/

MOSgraphinator is a tool developed internally to view statistics collected by the Edgewater and can separate the data according to the LAN, WAN or both sides combined. Depending on which direction the call quality issue is coming from, we can either look at the LAN or WAN or both sides. MOSgraphinator will tell you:

  • MOS Score 
  • Packet Loss
  • Out of Order Packets
  • MPJ and MNJ - Maxium Positive Jitter and Maximum Negative Jitter
  • Max Concurrent Calls

Ask the caller who is having the reported issue

  • Caller side: issue is on the receive side of the WAN and/or the phone
  • Callee side: issue is on the transmit side of the phone or the WAN. (Note: This is often caused with DSL customers that have a small amount of "up" bandwidth.)
  • Both: look in both directions

Clicking on "Click here for a CSV of the data" will download a CSV file which will show numerical values for the graphs.

Check Errors on Circuit (ON-NET Customers)

Call quality may be affected by errors on the circuit. If you are troubleshooting call quality for an ON-NET customer, it may be helpful to check for errors. Please refer to the HS01 guide on how to check a circuit for errors

HS01 Guide

OFF-NET Customers

For OFF-NET customers (customers with their own broadband connection that is not managed by EvolveIP), we are not able to check for errors on their circuits. But you are able to:

  • Determine the customer's ISP
    • ISP will be shown in Nagios but sometimes it does not show
    • Enter in the customer's IP Address (if this is a remote user or ISP doesn't show in Nagios) into arin.net to determine who the ISP is for that user/customer

     

Error rendering macro 'contentbylabel'

parameters should not be empty