Anyone have offices that deal with Skype with those Polycom conference phones?

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YeOldeStonecat

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I have a client that's been growing..still small though...they've been using Skype to do conference calls between their 3x offices...NYC, CT, and Brazil.
A year ago they got one of those Polycom conference phones that sits in the middle of a table, sorta triangular shaped. Worked fairly well. The satellite offices..1 -2 people in Brazil, and 3-4 people in the CT office..just run with headsets on each user.

NY office on a 10/1 cable connection with TW.
CT office on a 10/2 cable connection with Comcast
Who the heck knows about Brazil...shakey cup 'n string imitation broadband down there.

Anyways, the Polycom at the NYC office...they've used that connecting to a desktop PC via bluetooth, and the desktop runs the Skype client. They've started asking if things have changed with their internet connection..and nothing has..same firewall (Untangle) at NYC and CT. Only thing that's changed has been a VPN tunnel recently got brought up between the 2 offices..via Untangle.

IMO, plenty of bandwidth. NYC office is upgrading to a 15/2 connection soon.

I'm guessing the bluetooth is the weak link..between the Polycom and the desktop PC.
 
My personal experiences with hosted VOIP over cable and dsl linds has never been positive. The bandwidth is never guarenteed with these serives and is more best effort by the cable company. TW is a POS also.

A proper VOIP system running over PRI would eliminate the issue, but add expense.
 
I'm really freaking tired, so I apologize if I'm just missing it, but did you say what the problem they were having was? I assume it's bad call quality, but I have read the damn thing three times now and can't confirm this :p

We have a Polycom SoundStation 2 (I believe what you are referring to) and I have played with Skype over it; Bluetooth worked well with the system + dongle 20 feet away. We have never conducted serious business meetings with Skype because we just do everything "locally" through our VPNs, but the little I have played, it sounded alright.
 
kevinzak said:
I'm really freaking tired, so I apologize if I'm just missing it, but did you say what the problem they were having was? I assume it's bad call quality, but I have read the damn thing three times now and can't confirm this :p .
Click to expand...

LMAO....yeah, you read between the lines properly....I forgot to basically say what the problem was. According to them, gets static/sloppy sounding, poor voice quality at times. Once in a while calls drop.

I'm wondering if the new Docsis 3 product that TW has been offering is worth it. If latecy will be less. They can go to a 20/2 package and a 30/5 package...but the 30/5 package is quite costly, like 360/mo or so.

I'm wondering if the "power" of the workstation that the Skype client/bluetooth dongle runs on has an impact of the conversation. It's probably 15' from their conf table.
 
Have you messed with any QoS at the three locations? I notice even for home use, my Skype quality just shot through the roof after getting it to play nice with priority rules. I guess my first course of action would be to use a headset mic or something to make a call and ensure that the Polycom unit didn't take a crap. After eliminating that, I would assume you are correct in terms of it being a latency issue.
 
Yeah...I have QoS enabled, and have tried adjusting it up and down. Also, by default, Untangle has SIP bypass rules enabled...so that traffic bypasses the layer 7 train of Untangles components.

The NYC office has UT running on a Dell PE R200 server...with only 4-6 workstation users. They usually initiate the conference calls. And when they're doing a conference call..it's usually all of them at the table, so nobody is sitting on their workstation surfing or causing much other activity.

I just received an e-mail from one of the peeps in the NYC office...they just did a conference call via Skype..but initiated it from one of their laptops...and he said it made a world of difference to the other users on the call..they hear him very clearly. He just didn't hear them as nicely...as of the laptop built in speakers. So eliminating the Polycom via bluetooth to the old P4 H/T rig, and moving to the laptop w/Core 2 Duo and 4 gigs of RAM..running on ethernet via the docking station, helped quite a bit. Perhaps we have our answer here.

Soooo...how to use this and combine it with the Polycom in the middle of the big conference table? Wondering...if I recall last time I saw the Polycom, it has an ethernet jack in it? Or..can it be connected via a USB cable to a PC?
 
As far as Ethernet, VoiceStation 500s are not meant to be plugged into digital networks as per the manual. It says it can damage the unit. They come with 4ft computer calling cables, but that's probably not long enough for your needs? I truly don't remember what the other end is, but I assume it's USB. An extender might work, or perhaps you could wire up an in-desk hub? If memory serves, they also have a 2.5mm audio jack to plug into, but I don't know the specifics of just plugging into a computer's i/o audio ports with them.

Other than that, perhaps a new Bluetooth dongle for the desktop would help? If you have one laying around it would be an easy test versus trying to extend that cable.
 
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Actually, now that I think about it, with those older VoiceStations the computer calling cable might be one 2.5mm going into the phone and two jacks for input and mic going into the computer. So that would be fairly easy to extend, Monoprice sells 2.5mm extensions as do most local shops.

Sorry, I haven't even played with one in two years. But I think you could do it that.
 
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