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Improve the quality of your VoIP calls

Francesca Migliorini

Francesca Migliorini

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voip.pngVoice Over IP is a technology that allows you to use the Internet Protocol to transmit your voice and, practically speaking, to call everywhere in the world, mobile or landline numbers. Skype is the most widely known and used VoIP application, but there are also other valid options, like VoipBuster, which can be an even a cheaper solution when calling abroad.

Recently though, I had some issues on the quality side of my VoIP conversations. Although I used a handset, this was not enough to reach the same quality level of a normal land-line telephone conversation. You can actually end up getting very frustrated when your voice is cut and you don’t realise it until you discover the other person is speaking on their own without listening to you at all! In fact, it may happen that if you both speak at the same time, your voice doesn’t go through and you have to repeat things, ruing the natural feeling of a relaxing good chat. How can you improve then the quality of VoIP conversation?

Some well known advice is to use a good handset, which in fact is a must have for internet phone calls, then to double check that your software is updated and finally to avoid downloading or watching online TV while calling. That’s all fairly obvious.

More advanced users could double check if in their router is set to prioritize the VoIP traffic in the router configuration page. Most routers allow you to do so in their Quality of Service (QoS) settings, and you should prioritize the IP address and audio UDP port for your VoIP provider. Some modern routers though, are smart enough to recognize VoIP traffic, and automatically prioritise it over other kinds of traffic, but you can easily check this in your router configuration page. Another easy step to follow is to optimize your computer for broadband. SG TCP Optimizer, for example, can change your OS’s networking settings to allow your computer making the best use of your broadband connection.

If you have experienced poor quality on VoIP conversation, tell us how you solved it and what do you believe being the best VoIP application.

Francesca Migliorini

Francesca Migliorini

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