Codotel

mike l

Silver
Sep 4, 2007
3,157
466
0
Is anyone having bandwidth problems from Codotel in the Sosua area.

I do not have enogh bandwidth to make phone calls with Vonage.

I can dial but everyone says I am breaking up.

This has been happening since last Thursday
 

mike l

Silver
Sep 4, 2007
3,157
466
0
The unfortunate thing is one of my employees who has a wife and 2 kids will end up being homeless over this.
 

Castellamonte

Bronze
Mar 3, 2005
1,764
50
48
Cabrera
www.villa-castellamonte.com
We've had the same problem in Cabrera. We have a Vonage line and a BroadVoice on two separate DSL lines. Both are breaking up pretty badly. Useable but only if no one else is on those DSL lines at all. I've requested an upgrade to T1...maybe then I can get about 700Kb out of them consistently. Sigh.
 

SKY

Gold
Apr 11, 2004
13,470
3,604
113
It is important to have a high upload speed for Vonage to work without breaking up. If you do not have 450-500 kps or more up you will break up when you talk.

Test for upload and if it is not sufficient upgrade the service to 1.5 - 768 service with Codetel.
 

NotLurking

Bronze
Jul 21, 2003
2,447
1,235
113
Sto Dgo Este
It is important to have a high upload speed for Vonage to work without breaking up. If you do not have 450-500 kps or more up you will break up when you talk.

Test for upload and if it is not sufficient upgrade the service to 1.5 - 768 service with Codetel.

I've used vonage from my codetel DSL connection (1mb down /128kb up) with no problems. Of course I don't use the uncompress high bit rate codec.


By default, Vonage has chosen the uncompressed G.711 codec as their audio compressor, which requires 64Kb of bandwidth for media alone. With headers, this rises to approximately 90Kb. However, any Vonage user can change the codec from G.711 to G.729, reducing the media requirements from 64Kb to approximately 9Kb. Vonage addresses changing the codec here:
Bandwidth Saver - Vonage VoIP Internet Phone Features: Vonage - A Better Way to Phone for Less
Source: https://www.talia.net/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=pdfexport&kbarticleid=63

NotLurking
 
Feb 7, 2007
8,005
625
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It is important to have a high upload speed for Vonage to work without breaking up. If you do not have 450-500 kps or more up you will break up when you talk.

There is no VOIP codec that uses 400 or 500 kbps. The most bandwidth-extensive codec is g711 which uses 64 kbps upstream/downstream. Vonage uses g711 codec.

I use Lingo which is cheaper than Vonage and I have free calls to all of Western Europe besides the USA and Canada. Lingo is a product of Primus.

Lingo also allows you to select g711 codec and g729 codec, which requires substantially less bandwidth (8 kbps). It is also necessary to calculate overhead required for each codec, which is about 25%, so for g711 codec your upload/download speed has to be 80 kbps and with g729 about 10 kbps. I have had Lingo working with no problems on Viva Interjet, where the upload speed is very unstable and fluctuates highly.

A regular DSL connection in the DR has 128 kbps upload, which is sufficient enough to use even g711 codec (e.g. Vonage) but does not eprmit you lots of other Internet usage (remember even downloading pages uses upload)
 
Feb 7, 2007
8,005
625
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Regrading comparison od Codetel's speed test and a remote speed test server (e.g. speakeasy or speedtest):

Remember one important thing: When you do a speed test on Codetel's website, you are connecting to a speed test server over Codetel's private network. You are actually not reaching the "public Internet". You ride the Codetel's backbone, which apparently has sufficient throughput.

Now when you do a speed test on the Internet, you go to the "public Internet" - the Codetel's backbone connects to the underlying Internet network (e.g. in Puerto Plata the Caribbean Crossing, etc.) and there what affects your speed is: a) the international bandwidth available at the moment (Codetel has certain bandwidth but has been a known case that the international bandwidth has been insufficient recently and especially during daily peak times things slow down considerably); and b) the public Internet network between the Codetel and the speed server you use, where a problem, slow down, congestion, time out etc. can occur at any point (hop) on the route; and c) the number of users that use the public speed test server.

Try making the speed test on codetel's website and on public speed test server at 3 to 4 am. The speeds should be virtually the same.
 

mike l

Silver
Sep 4, 2007
3,157
466
0
The upload is the more important part at this point. What plan do you have? Do you already have 512 up? If not you should bump that up and not the download speed.


We currently have 750 down 512 up but there are other users on this service so we are thinking of 1.5 down and whatever the upload is that comes with this option.

However the speed tests are showing huge flucuations
 
J

joerusso

Guest
No issues here and I use them for my call center from home. I'm over 800 kps and sometimes better when the lines are not so busy. Stay away from Tricom! if thinking about a change