comcast phone service affected by bittorrent?

blinkmus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 8, 2003
Messages
242
We have the 3 in one package for Comcast...internet, phone, digital tv.

My wife swears that when i have a torrent going it affects the phone service, has anyone else experienced this.

Thanks in advance
 
Yes internet activity cuts in on voice quality with VoIP. Tis why more and more people are seeking routers that support QoS.
 
With Comcast's Digital Phone service, torrent or any other internet traffic won't effect it. The VOIP traffic is run a different channel from internet traffic.
 
With Comcast's Digital Phone service, torrent or any other internet traffic won't effect it. The VOIP traffic is run a different channel from internet traffic.

What "channel" is it run on then? :rolleyes:

When you have VOIP service you will be using the bandwidth your ISP gives to you. You don't get other BW or a channel for VOIP :rolleyes:. VOIP only uses about 6kbps of BW, so not much at all..

I know from personal experience when I was on comcast that my buddy had vonage, and it was running thru a linksys router. At times, but not constant there were issues when someone on the network was using more BW, and would cause a delay when talking on the phone. Now it could have been that the phone was shitty, the router was not setup correctly, or it was really a BW issue. I would of had to tested each device to see where the fayulty point was. This was a few years back...

Here's some things to look at:
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Bandwidth+consumption

You may also find some good info here: http://slashdot.org/articles/06/03/02/139241.shtml
 
Comcast Digital Phone or Digital Voice? I thought Digital Phone was still using landlines, and Digital Voice is the actual VoIP service (I am still a subscriber of their awfully expensive digital phone service).

But yes, if you have digital voice, your call quality could be affected by heavier internet usage, especially if you have your upstream usage at full (which is what unregulated torrenting does). It could also be very bad if you are on a particularly high traffic branch of the comcast network.
 
With Comcast's Digital Phone service, torrent or any other internet traffic won't effect it. The VOIP traffic is run a different channel from internet traffic.

It sure affected mine....I could replicate it on and off all day long...no PC activity...quite clear, start a download..or while playing an online game...choppy. Soon as you stopped...cleared right up. Start heavy activity again..choppy.
 
It's not suppose to effect it. :) Since, the voice does is separated from the data. Course it's possible the configuration/setup does vary by region.
 
It sure affected mine....I could replicate it on and off all day long...no PC activity...quite clear, start a download..or while playing an online game...choppy. Soon as you stopped...cleared right up. Start heavy activity again..choppy.

That is what the wife said...I left for work with a torrent going, she got a call, could not hear anything. She turned it off, and then could hear the person calling. She said she played with it and was able to repeat it with no problem. So i guess it is the torrent.

Thanks for the replies.
 
That must be by region because I have Optimum Triple Play here in Jersey, my phone is plugged directly into my modem and then my router is plugged in to the modem as well.
So:
Modem ---Phone
|---Router --- computers

I can be downloading at about 1800k and my phone quality is still clear and nothing interrupts it, sucks to hear about that on Comcast.
 
Sounds like your modem is set up with QoS, favoring the phone traffic to prevent bandwidth problems.
 
Well the modem is a Motorola SBV5120 Surfboard, so I am going to assume that it has QoS built in to it, which is fine since so does my router too, a DGL-4300.
Either way I am not gonna complain since Optimum doesn't limit my bandwidth even after hours of abusing my 15/2 connection. :D
Hmm, maybe I should try out there 30/5 connection, hehe. ;)
 
I haven't heard many success stories from Comcast VoIP users so I'm not surprised but it is rather funny since they market it as being on a separate frequency than the data network. I'll stick with and recommend Vonage, well at least until they either go under or take over the world. :) Though I wouldn't be surprised if, since they are being attacked by all the major phone companies now, one of them doesn't sneak up and offer to "make everything right" if they sell... sounds like something Verizon would do. hehe
 
Back
Top