Call quality issue / survey
Hey gang, Let's play a game. I have made two audio rips from two RTP captures I made of two phone calls through two different termination carriers to the same phone number (in this case, it happens to be to the IVR at City Hall of Fairbanks, AK). I have temporarily allocated 2 DIDs for the purpose of this game, and depending on which one you call, you will either hear played back to you the recording of the call as it happened through one carrier, or through the other. Whoever wants to participate, please place calls to both numbers (do it either from a landline or a G.711u VoIP session, please), and tell me which version of the recording you prefer, why you prefer it, and if you had to put it into words (which you do), how you would describe the difference between the two recordings. I am not going to tell you which one I prefer nor which carrier terminated which recording (I'm actually not 100% sure yet in the case of one of them), or even which carriers are involved, at least until after I've gotten some feedback from you all first. Basically, I'm trying to find out if I'm crazy, or if there really is a difference between the two recordings in terms of audio quality. I say there is a stark difference. I've had others tell me they can't hear it. Maybe I have "golden ears". :-P Here are the two phone numbers to call: 208-301-5083 208-301-5084 Alternatively, for those of you would like copies of the actual audio files to listen to, I can provide those upon request; just contact me off-list. Thanks, -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com
I feel like the second one is dropping the first 2 or 3 seconds of audio. Calling from an AT&T cellphone, but I don't get the intro chime on the second recording, only the first. It could be related to the second carriers early media handling, but I wouldn't necessarily chock it up to that. Fun test. We just did this with about 30 different carriers; that was fun. Kept QA busy for a couple days lol. Cheers, Joshua Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2013, at 5:58 PM, "Nathan Anderson" <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Hey gang,
Let's play a game. I have made two audio rips from two RTP captures I made of two phone calls through two different termination carriers to the same phone number (in this case, it happens to be to the IVR at City Hall of Fairbanks, AK). I have temporarily allocated 2 DIDs for the purpose of this game, and depending on which one you call, you will either hear played back to you the recording of the call as it happened through one carrier, or through the other.
Whoever wants to participate, please place calls to both numbers (do it either from a landline or a G.711u VoIP session, please), and tell me which version of the recording you prefer, why you prefer it, and if you had to put it into words (which you do), how you would describe the difference between the two recordings. I am not going to tell you which one I prefer nor which carrier terminated which recording (I'm actually not 100% sure yet in the case of one of them), or even which carriers are involved, at least until after I've gotten some feedback from you all first.
Basically, I'm trying to find out if I'm crazy, or if there really is a difference between the two recordings in terms of audio quality. I say there is a stark difference. I've had others tell me they can't hear it. Maybe I have "golden ears". :-P
Here are the two phone numbers to call:
208-301-5083 208-301-5084
Alternatively, for those of you would like copies of the actual audio files to listen to, I can provide those upon request; just contact me off-list.
Thanks,
-- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
Thanks for participating. The chime is actually there on both...if you can repeat the test later from a landline, that would be swell! Thanks, -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com -----Original Message----- From: Joshua Goldbard [mailto:j at 2600hz.com] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 6:03 PM To: Nathan Anderson Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey I feel like the second one is dropping the first 2 or 3 seconds of audio. Calling from an AT&T cellphone, but I don't get the intro chime on the second recording, only the first. It could be related to the second carriers early media handling, but I wouldn't necessarily chock it up to that. Fun test. We just did this with about 30 different carriers; that was fun. Kept QA busy for a couple days lol. Cheers, Joshua Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2013, at 5:58 PM, "Nathan Anderson" <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Hey gang,
Let's play a game. I have made two audio rips from two RTP captures I made of two phone calls through two different termination carriers to the same phone number (in this case, it happens to be to the IVR at City Hall of Fairbanks, AK). I have temporarily allocated 2 DIDs for the purpose of this game, and depending on which one you call, you will either hear played back to you the recording of the call as it happened through one carrier, or through the other.
Whoever wants to participate, please place calls to both numbers (do it either from a landline or a G.711u VoIP session, please), and tell me which version of the recording you prefer, why you prefer it, and if you had to put it into words (which you do), how you would describe the difference between the two recordings. I am not going to tell you which one I prefer nor which carrier terminated which recording (I'm actually not 100% sure yet in the case of one of them), or even which carriers are involved, at least until after I've gotten some feedback from you all first.
Basically, I'm trying to find out if I'm crazy, or if there really is a difference between the two recordings in terms of audio quality. I say there is a stark difference. I've had others tell me they can't hear it. Maybe I have "golden ears". :-P
Here are the two phone numbers to call:
208-301-5083 208-301-5084
Alternatively, for those of you would like copies of the actual audio files to listen to, I can provide those upon request; just contact me off-list.
Thanks,
-- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote: Calls placed from XO eSIP and AT&T cell, exact same results:
208-301-5083 :00 No ringback :01.5 Music starts :03 Silence and then woman speaking on the IVR. Consistent volume
208-301-5084 :00 No ringback :07 Loud click :10 Her voice is very weak and fades in (and is somewhat choppy) :12 Normal from that point forward
208-301-5083 is far and away better. Sounds better, starts quicker, no awkward silence. What do I win for playing? Best, Gabe
See I'm not crazy!! Lol Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2013, at 6:29 PM, "Gabriel Gunderson" <gabe at gundy.org> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Calls placed from XO eSIP and AT&T cell, exact same results:
208-301-5083 :00 No ringback :01.5 Music starts :03 Silence and then woman speaking on the IVR. Consistent volume
208-301-5084 :00 No ringback :07 Loud click :10 Her voice is very weak and fades in (and is somewhat choppy) :12 Normal from that point forward
208-301-5083 is far and away better. Sounds better, starts quicker, no awkward silence.
What do I win for playing?
Best, Gabe _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
Never said you were. :-) But I will continue to be coy about the details for the time being because I don't want to influence the other responses... -- Nathan -----Original Message----- From: Joshua Goldbard [mailto:j at 2600hz.com] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 6:40 PM To: Gabriel Gunderson Cc: Nathan Anderson; voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey See I'm not crazy!! Lol Sent from my iPhone On Mar 8, 2013, at 6:29 PM, "Gabriel Gunderson" <gabe at gundy.org> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Calls placed from XO eSIP and AT&T cell, exact same results:
208-301-5083 :00 No ringback :01.5 Music starts :03 Silence and then woman speaking on the IVR. Consistent volume
208-301-5084 :00 No ringback :07 Loud click :10 Her voice is very weak and fades in (and is somewhat choppy) :12 Normal from that point forward
208-301-5083 is far and away better. Sounds better, starts quicker, no awkward silence.
What do I win for playing?
Best, Gabe _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
The first number is definitely clearer and uniform volume. The second one I also heard a loud click, no music and her voice was weak and got stronger. However neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through. ~Jared On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 9:44 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Never said you were. :-) But I will continue to be coy about the details for the time being because I don't want to influence the other responses...
-- Nathan
-----Original Message----- From: Joshua Goldbard [mailto:j at 2600hz.com] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2013 6:40 PM To: Gabriel Gunderson Cc: Nathan Anderson; voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey
See I'm not crazy!! Lol
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 8, 2013, at 6:29 PM, "Gabriel Gunderson" <gabe at gundy.org> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 6:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Calls placed from XO eSIP and AT&T cell, exact same results:
208-301-5083 :00 No ringback :01.5 Music starts :03 Silence and then woman speaking on the IVR. Consistent volume
208-301-5084 :00 No ringback :07 Loud click :10 Her voice is very weak and fades in (and is somewhat choppy) :12 Normal from that point forward
208-301-5083 is far and away better. Sounds better, starts quicker, no awkward silence.
What do I win for playing?
Best, Gabe _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
Test DID #1 208-301-5083 is much preferable in my opinion. #2 has a loud click like Gabe pointed out and it ramps the volume up from nearly zero to an acceptable level after a few seconds. #1 sets up faster and immediately achieves the same level. That was fun. Thanks On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 8:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
Hey gang,
Let's play a game. I have made two audio rips from two RTP captures I made of two phone calls through two different termination carriers to the same phone number (in this case, it happens to be to the IVR at City Hall of Fairbanks, AK). I have temporarily allocated 2 DIDs for the purpose of this game, and depending on which one you call, you will either hear played back to you the recording of the call as it happened through one carrier, or through the other.
Whoever wants to participate, please place calls to both numbers (do it either from a landline or a G.711u VoIP session, please), and tell me which version of the recording you prefer, why you prefer it, and if you had to put it into words (which you do), how you would describe the difference between the two recordings. I am not going to tell you which one I prefer nor which carrier terminated which recording (I'm actually not 100% sure yet in the case of one of them), or even which carriers are involved, at least until after I've gotten some feedback from you all first.
Basically, I'm trying to find out if I'm crazy, or if there really is a difference between the two recordings in terms of audio quality. I say there is a stark difference. I've had others tell me they can't hear it. Maybe I have "golden ears". :-P
Here are the two phone numbers to call:
208-301-5083 208-301-5084
Alternatively, for those of you would like copies of the actual audio files to listen to, I can provide those upon request; just contact me off-list.
Thanks,
-- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
208-301-5083<tel:208-301-5083>: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. 208-301-5084<tel:208-301-5084>: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec. Anyone that puts music at the start of an audio stream these days is simply begging for trouble. No telling when your path is going to get xcoded down by someone in the (probably ever-changing) path. David From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Tony Zunt Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2013 15:24 To: Nathan Anderson Cc: voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey Test DID #1 208-301-5083<tel:208-301-5083> is much preferable in my opinion. #2 has a loud click like Gabe pointed out and it ramps the volume up from nearly zero to an acceptable level after a few seconds. #1 sets up faster and immediately achieves the same level. That was fun. Thanks On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 8:55 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com<mailto:nathana at fsr.com>> wrote: Hey gang, Let's play a game. I have made two audio rips from two RTP captures I made of two phone calls through two different termination carriers to the same phone number (in this case, it happens to be to the IVR at City Hall of Fairbanks, AK). I have temporarily allocated 2 DIDs for the purpose of this game, and depending on which one you call, you will either hear played back to you the recording of the call as it happened through one carrier, or through the other. Whoever wants to participate, please place calls to both numbers (do it either from a landline or a G.711u VoIP session, please), and tell me which version of the recording you prefer, why you prefer it, and if you had to put it into words (which you do), how you would describe the difference between the two recordings. I am not going to tell you which one I prefer nor which carrier terminated which recording (I'm actually not 100% sure yet in the case of one of them), or even which carriers are involved, at least until after I've gotten some feedback from you all first. Basically, I'm trying to find out if I'm crazy, or if there really is a difference between the two recordings in terms of audio quality. I say there is a stark difference. I've had others tell me they can't hear it. Maybe I have "golden ears". :-P Here are the two phone numbers to call: 208-301-5083<tel:208-301-5083> 208-301-5084<tel:208-301-5084> Alternatively, for those of you would like copies of the actual audio files to listen to, I can provide those upon request; just contact me off-list. Thanks, -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com<mailto:nathana at fsr.com> _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org<mailto:VoiceOps at voiceops.org> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.
On Monday, March 11, 2013 6:45 AM, Hiers, David <mailto:David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote:
208-301-5083: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. 208-301-5084: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec.
*ding* *ding* *ding*! We have a winner! (Runner-up goes to Jared who also touched on the codec issue.) Although everybody picked the same recording in the end, what David points out is exactly what I had noticed and was looking for in the responses: one sounded like a land-line. The other sounded like a bad cell phone call. This is why I was encouraging people to NOT run the test from a cell phone: because you'd be on the receiving end of an actual voice-optimized codec, which would mask the issue somewhat. In response to Jared's comment that... On Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:40 AM, Jared Geiger <> wrote:
[...] neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through.
...I suspect that is partly an issue with the source material. And who knows what kind of equipment the end-user has or how it is hooked up to the telco (iffy analog loops?). But there are no noticeable compression artifacts when you listen to the one from 5083, and there are in the 5084 recording. This is despite the fact that the audio stream that was delivered to us was, in fact, G.711u. Somehow, some way, the audio stream is getting encoded with a lossy compression scheme of some kind, and then transcoded back to G.711u before being handed off to us. I suspect more is going on here, though, than the simple transcoding (although that is obviously part of it). The long connection times, the annoyingly loud "pop" at the beginning of the call when it's finally being connected, occasional scratchiness/static on the line, inconsistent volume levels during a call, wildly inconsistent volume levels *between* calls (some are super-low the entire time)...these are all problems that we are regularly and constantly seeing with calls to this entire rate center as a whole. The person who initially responded to my ticket about this said he couldn't hear the issue, thus this post. I wanted to know whether I was crazy or not. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com
I'm going to Disneyland! :) Bad quality into an entire rate center? What's it like coming out of that rate center? I've had a broad problem that turned out to be a particular tandem carrier. They were the cheap way into RCx, and all calls into RCx were bad. David -----Original Message----- From: Nathan Anderson [mailto:nathana at fsr.com] Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 14:32 To: Hiers, David (DS) Cc: 'voiceops at voiceops.org' Subject: RE: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey On Monday, March 11, 2013 6:45 AM, Hiers, David <mailto:David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote:
208-301-5083: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. 208-301-5084: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec.
*ding* *ding* *ding*! We have a winner! (Runner-up goes to Jared who also touched on the codec issue.) Although everybody picked the same recording in the end, what David points out is exactly what I had noticed and was looking for in the responses: one sounded like a land-line. The other sounded like a bad cell phone call. This is why I was encouraging people to NOT run the test from a cell phone: because you'd be on the receiving end of an actual voice-optimized codec, which would mask the issue somewhat. In response to Jared's comment that... On Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:40 AM, Jared Geiger <> wrote:
[...] neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through.
...I suspect that is partly an issue with the source material. And who knows what kind of equipment the end-user has or how it is hooked up to the telco (iffy analog loops?). But there are no noticeable compression artifacts when you listen to the one from 5083, and there are in the 5084 recording. This is despite the fact that the audio stream that was delivered to us was, in fact, G.711u. Somehow, some way, the audio stream is getting encoded with a lossy compression scheme of some kind, and then transcoded back to G.711u before being handed off to us. I suspect more is going on here, though, than the simple transcoding (although that is obviously part of it). The long connection times, the annoyingly loud "pop" at the beginning of the call when it's finally being connected, occasional scratchiness/static on the line, inconsistent volume levels during a call, wildly inconsistent volume levels *between* calls (some are super-low the entire time)...these are all problems that we are regularly and constantly seeing with calls to this entire rate center as a whole. The person who initially responded to my ticket about this said he couldn't hear the issue, thus this post. I wanted to know whether I was crazy or not. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.
It's definitely a termination-only issue as people up there can call us on our DIDs and the call quality is crystal-clear. So it's not an issue with the LEC itself. It used to be crappy only to ACS of Fairbanks numbers and good to numbers with other CLECs in Fairbanks. A capture revealed that the "good" calls were being sent to a different media gateway. Recently, though, we've been seeing our termination aggregator send ALL calls to all LECs in that rate center through the same crappy carrier. -- Nathan -----Original Message----- From: Hiers, David [mailto:David.Hiers at adp.com] Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 3:03 PM To: Nathan Anderson Cc: 'voiceops at voiceops.org' Subject: RE: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey I'm going to Disneyland! :) Bad quality into an entire rate center? What's it like coming out of that rate center? I've had a broad problem that turned out to be a particular tandem carrier. They were the cheap way into RCx, and all calls into RCx were bad. David -----Original Message----- From: Nathan Anderson [mailto:nathana at fsr.com] Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 14:32 To: Hiers, David (DS) Cc: 'voiceops at voiceops.org' Subject: RE: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey On Monday, March 11, 2013 6:45 AM, Hiers, David <mailto:David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote:
208-301-5083: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. 208-301-5084: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec.
*ding* *ding* *ding*! We have a winner! (Runner-up goes to Jared who also touched on the codec issue.) Although everybody picked the same recording in the end, what David points out is exactly what I had noticed and was looking for in the responses: one sounded like a land-line. The other sounded like a bad cell phone call. This is why I was encouraging people to NOT run the test from a cell phone: because you'd be on the receiving end of an actual voice-optimized codec, which would mask the issue somewhat. In response to Jared's comment that... On Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:40 AM, Jared Geiger <> wrote:
[...] neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through.
...I suspect that is partly an issue with the source material. And who knows what kind of equipment the end-user has or how it is hooked up to the telco (iffy analog loops?). But there are no noticeable compression artifacts when you listen to the one from 5083, and there are in the 5084 recording. This is despite the fact that the audio stream that was delivered to us was, in fact, G.711u. Somehow, some way, the audio stream is getting encoded with a lossy compression scheme of some kind, and then transcoded back to G.711u before being handed off to us. I suspect more is going on here, though, than the simple transcoding (although that is obviously part of it). The long connection times, the annoyingly loud "pop" at the beginning of the call when it's finally being connected, occasional scratchiness/static on the line, inconsistent volume levels during a call, wildly inconsistent volume levels *between* calls (some are super-low the entire time)...these are all problems that we are regularly and constantly seeing with calls to this entire rate center as a whole. The person who initially responded to my ticket about this said he couldn't hear the issue, thus this post. I wanted to know whether I was crazy or not. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com This message and any attachments are intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. If the reader of the message is not the intended recipient or an authorized representative of the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and delete the message and any attachments from your system.
If you end up having a lot of Alaska calls, contact ACS Alaska to connect with them directly. They would give you the best clarity since they own and operate the number. I tested out many of my providers calling the actual number 19074596715 to see if I could stumble upon the one that clicked and sounded horrible. All of mine sounded like the 5083 number with the leading music and uniform volume. Some had more jitter than others. I'm really curious to see what ACS sounds like though. The reseller who used to use ACS no longer is selling to me though so I can't test. ~Jared On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote:
On Monday, March 11, 2013 6:45 AM, Hiers, David <mailto: David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote:
208-301-5083: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. 208-301-5084: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec.
*ding* *ding* *ding*! We have a winner! (Runner-up goes to Jared who also touched on the codec issue.)
Although everybody picked the same recording in the end, what David points out is exactly what I had noticed and was looking for in the responses: one sounded like a land-line. The other sounded like a bad cell phone call. This is why I was encouraging people to NOT run the test from a cell phone: because you'd be on the receiving end of an actual voice-optimized codec, which would mask the issue somewhat.
In response to Jared's comment that...
On Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:40 AM, Jared Geiger <> wrote:
[...] neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through.
...I suspect that is partly an issue with the source material. And who knows what kind of equipment the end-user has or how it is hooked up to the telco (iffy analog loops?). But there are no noticeable compression artifacts when you listen to the one from 5083, and there are in the 5084 recording. This is despite the fact that the audio stream that was delivered to us was, in fact, G.711u. Somehow, some way, the audio stream is getting encoded with a lossy compression scheme of some kind, and then transcoded back to G.711u before being handed off to us.
I suspect more is going on here, though, than the simple transcoding (although that is obviously part of it). The long connection times, the annoyingly loud "pop" at the beginning of the call when it's finally being connected, occasional scratchiness/static on the line, inconsistent volume levels during a call, wildly inconsistent volume levels *between* calls (some are super-low the entire time)...these are all problems that we are regularly and constantly seeing with calls to this entire rate center as a whole.
The person who initially responded to my ticket about this said he couldn't hear the issue, thus this post. I wanted to know whether I was crazy or not.
-- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
The good (5083) call was terminated by Zayo f.k.a 360Networks. I'm still not entirely clear on who is terminating the bad (5084) call. The media gateway IP is from a range apparently used by a hosting company. I suspect that the term aggregator we are using is sending it on to another aggregator who is masking the ultimate destination by proxying the media through a host of theirs; I say this because I've seen plenty of non-Alaska calls that have also sent us media from that same IP, and those calls have been perfectly fine. -- Nathan -----Original Message----- From: compuwizz at gmail.com [mailto:compuwizz at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Jared Geiger Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 3:04 PM To: Nathan Anderson Cc: Hiers, David; voiceops at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] Call quality issue / survey If you end up having a lot of Alaska calls, contact ACS Alaska to connect with them directly. They would give you the best clarity since they own and operate the number. I tested out many of my providers calling the actual number 19074596715 to see if I could stumble upon the one that clicked and sounded horrible. All of mine sounded like the 5083 number with the leading music and uniform volume. Some had more jitter than others. I'm really curious to see what ACS sounds like though. The reseller who used to use ACS no longer is selling to me though so I can't test. ~Jared On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 5:31 PM, Nathan Anderson <nathana at fsr.com> wrote: On Monday, March 11, 2013 6:45 AM, Hiers, David <mailto:David.Hiers at adp.com> wrote: > 208-301-5083: Good quality. Sounds like a waveform codec. > 208-301-5084: Mostly unacceptable quality. Sounds like a vocoder codec. *ding* *ding* *ding*! We have a winner! (Runner-up goes to Jared who also touched on the codec issue.) Although everybody picked the same recording in the end, what David points out is exactly what I had noticed and was looking for in the responses: one sounded like a land-line. The other sounded like a bad cell phone call. This is why I was encouraging people to NOT run the test from a cell phone: because you'd be on the receiving end of an actual voice-optimized codec, which would mask the issue somewhat. In response to Jared's comment that... On Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:40 AM, Jared Geiger <> wrote: > [...] neither seemed to have the warmth and clarity I would > expect from a full ulaw path the whole way through. ...I suspect that is partly an issue with the source material. And who knows what kind of equipment the end-user has or how it is hooked up to the telco (iffy analog loops?). But there are no noticeable compression artifacts when you listen to the one from 5083, and there are in the 5084 recording. This is despite the fact that the audio stream that was delivered to us was, in fact, G.711u. Somehow, some way, the audio stream is getting encoded with a lossy compression scheme of some kind, and then transcoded back to G.711u before being handed off to us. I suspect more is going on here, though, than the simple transcoding (although that is obviously part of it). The long connection times, the annoyingly loud "pop" at the beginning of the call when it's finally being connected, occasional scratchiness/static on the line, inconsistent volume levels during a call, wildly inconsistent volume levels *between* calls (some are super-low the entire time)...these are all problems that we are regularly and constantly seeing with calls to this entire rate center as a whole. The person who initially responded to my ticket about this said he couldn't hear the issue, thus this post. I wanted to know whether I was crazy or not. -- Nathan Anderson First Step Internet, LLC nathana at fsr.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
participants (6)
-
David.Hiers＠adp.com -
gabe＠gundy.org -
j＠2600hz.com -
jared＠compuwizz.net -
nathana＠fsr.com -
tony.zunt＠gmail.com