Prioritizing VOIP traffic on a home network?

Oldie

Oldie

Mean Old Administrator
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I'm using a Linksys WRT54G, and have a Vonage phone system plugged into it. Is there a way to prioritize the VOIP data over the PC traffic? Basically we get a big loss in phone clarity on the upstream whenever I'm remoting in, or uploading a file. I've tried solving the problem by getting more upstream, but Comcast won't let me, and they're my only option at the moment.

I'm stuck with a 16/3. Great on the downside, but horrid for those of us who frequently max out the up.
 
First internally: You need a switch that can handle QoS tagging. Dell has one for about $80.00. You may not need that with Vonage if you are not sending traffic from machine to machine internally, but it will beat the pants off the Linksys.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=pct2708&s=bsd

Next externally: You are going to need a router/firewall that can prioritize traffic outbound. The best thing I've found for home users would be a Linux firewall distribution like Endian or IPCop. Both have traffic prioritization that work fine for home use.
 
doesn't the hardware from vonage have QoS installed on it. Don't you put that in front of your router? I'm pretty sure packet8 works that way.
 
VOiP and saturating the upstream is a mixture that does not work well.

You don't mention if you are running the stock firmware or a custom one. DD-WRT allows for prioritizing certain MAC addresses on your network. While this will improve your voice call-quality it may not completely solve the problem.

You mention 16/3... is that megabits? If so then 3 Mb/s upload should be fine with DD-WRT prioritizing the voice. Personally I have 3Mb/256Kb and my Vonage works fine most of the time. But I have to limit the bandwidth hog apps such as bittorrent so that they will not max out the upstream.
 
Bean Dip said:
You mention 16/3... is that megabits? If so then 3 Mb/s upload should be fine with DD-WRT prioritizing the voice. Personally I have 3Mb/256Kb and my Vonage works fine most of the time. But I have to limit the bandwidth hog apps such as bittorrent so that they will not max out the upstream.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Yeah, I'm running the stock firmware, so this might be a good option. I'll check it out!

Also, I really don't want to place the vonage device in front of my router. It causes all kinds of issues with remote desktop, and other applications; and doesn't have a very good CP for making changes. I was able to place the router in the DMZ for the device, and it was still craptastic at passthrough.
 
Bean Dip said:
VOiP and saturating the upstream is a mixture that does not work well.

You don't mention if you are running the stock firmware or a custom one. DD-WRT allows for prioritizing certain MAC addresses on your network. While this will improve your voice call-quality it may not completely solve the problem.

.
Click to expand...


I run this at home, but prioritize by IP address, and have DHCP give the same address to the Vonage box every time. I had read several postings about this before I did it and most mention to do it By IP address, because of issues with QOS and doing it with MAC address with DD-WRT Firmware.(Note this was a long time ago. I now see no mention in any current articles about doing it speceficaly by IP address) It made a huge diffrence in my case. I was getting cut outs before setting it up, and they would be severe when doing a large file download off of the internet. Setting up QOS, I can now hammer the connection with downloads (5Mb) without a blip. One thing to note is I never tested with saturating my upload pipe (512k).
 
I'd suggest tweaking the integrated QoS settings in the router before doing anything else. That alone fixed some problems I was experiencing with voice quality way back when I first got Vonage.
 
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