Comcast Violates Net Neutrality

[frustratedvoipuser]

I've got a 12 mbit internet connection with Comcast, a Docsys 3.0 router and a new Ooma box. Life should be good but it's not. The Ooma box is between the modem and my router and sufficient bandwidth is reserved for upstream and downstream performance.

However, the call quality varies between great and unusable - hardly sufficient for a reliable phone connection. To put it another way the Ooma system is worthless unless I can get good performance 99% of the time. So after discussing my symptoms with an Ooma tech I learn about jitter, and voila, during periods where my call performance is poor my jitter measurements are way above 5 ms, sometimes 50 ms, sometimes 200 ms.

Calls to Comcast resulted in service techs coming twice to house and not finding anything. When I tell them it's likely that the QOS setting in their router need to prioritize my voip packets to guarantee performance they respond that they only guarantee voip performance with their own voip service.

Seems like Comcast has the means to make my voip reliable but is intentionally not doing so to favor their own system. Unless I'm mistaken this practice violates the principles of Net Neutrality and the FCC's Open Internet Order of 2010 whereby they state, "Consumers should be allowed to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement." How are people to successfully use Ooma if their internet provider won't prioritize their voip traffic?

I've got a call into a service manager who understands the issue but is currently looking into whether Comcast is prepared to do anything to address my issue. However, is there anyone out there who has been successful with Comcast? Anyone filed a complaint with the FCC over this issue? Any feedback on how to resolve this issue other than selling my Ooma box would be great.

Thanks,
Alan

[murphy]

Comcast phone service is not VOIP. It operates on private frequencies and does not travel over the public internet and does not have to compete with the general internet traffic.

Cable internet is a shared service. If there is anyone on your street that is a bandwidth hog they can affect your internet service.

[frustratedvoipuser]

Are you saying that Comcast has no capability in their infrastructure to keep my jitter to less than 5 ms? If this is true, then the Ooma service is doomed since reliable telephone quality can not be assured most of the time.
Alan

[thunderbird]

Are you saying that Comcast has no capability in their infrastructure to keep my jitter to less than 5 ms? If this is true, then the Ooma service is doomed since reliable telephone quality can not be assured most of the time.
Alan

The problem might be with your Modem or with the network cable coming into your home. If there are splitters in the cable coming into the house, those can cause problems.

Run http://speedtest.phonepower.com/ to see how your modem and Internet connection is doing. Then click on the Advance tab on the lower left side, and post the following values here in this thread, by clicking on "Quote" in the upper right hand corner of this post. Then fill in the blanks.

Download Speed: ________________
Upload Speed: ________________
Download Consistency of Service ________
Upload Consistency of Service _________
Maximum TCP Delay _____________
Jitter you server __________
Jitter server you _________
Packet loss: you server_______
Packet loss: server you ______
Packet discards _________
Packets out of order _________
Estimated MOS score ________

[frustratedvoipuser]

The big problem with these metrics is that they are just snapshots in time. The jitter I just measured on a Sunday afternoon is repeatedly less than 5 ms, download speed above 10 mbits and upload greater than 2 mbits. So what? On Tuesday evening when my wife needs to make a call at 4:30 PM it's unusable cause the jitter is 50 to 250 ms.

There's no issue with my modem, nor with my cables or splitters. Technicians have been out to my house twice. I can access the modem details and the signal quality and SNR are fine.

Alan

[frustratedvoipuser]

Murphy,

Comcast does use VOIP from the home to their network. Read, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2339204,00.asp, among many other articles...
Alan

[thunderbird]

The big problem with these metrics is that they are just snapshots in time. The jitter I just measured on a Sunday afternoon is repeatedly less than 5 ms, download speed above 10 mbits and upload greater than 2 mbits. So what? On Tuesday evening when my wife needs to make a call at 4:30 PM it's unusable cause the jitter is 50 to 250 ms.

There's no issue with my modem, nor with my cables or splitters. Technicians have been out to my house twice. I can access the modem details and the signal quality and SNR are fine.

Alan

frustratedvoipuser:
Reading between the lines, your root cause problem is probably not with jitter, but at times the lack of enough bandwidth. With some Internet providers, usually when bandwidth deteriorates, jitter and/or packet loss increases. After the bandwidth problem is corrected, jitter and/or packet loss returns to normal.

At the times when you are having problems with the Ooma phone system, you should be running Phonepower Speedtest or http://www.speedtest.net/ to see what the upload and download speeds are, and recording them.

If you are having huge reductions of speeds from a download speed 10 megabits and an upload of 2 megabits; the huge reductions of bandwidth at times, is what you should be complaining about to Comcast. That is what the Comcast people will understand. It's doubtful that they would understand Ooma VoIP and jitter or lost packets, or at least take it seriously.

You should also test at these times with your computer, trying to download some huge file. If it is also slowed to a snail's pace, you should be telling Comcast this. You should be telling Comcast that you have measured the bandwidth and it's operating a snails pace, and be able to provide the values that you recorded above. Tell them that while browsing the Internet, your computer is intermittent, freezes and at times seems to pulse.

Note: With a Modem-Ooma-Router connection, at times, if the Ooma devices Quality of Service upstream and downstream Internet speeds aren't set to approximately 80% of you upload and download speed as measured by http://www.speedtest.net/, a near shutdown of the bandwidth can occur in your home's LAN.

Note: Sometimes you can get improvements in your Internet speeds by rebooting your Modem. Most Internet provider’s routers are DHCP, and will issue a different WAN IP address, or even connect your modem to a different router and WAN IP address. When I was traveling in China, with our Ooma Telo and a small phone, I had to reboot the Modem and Ooma device together (DSL service) up to twenty times, before I got a good connection. Each time I would run Phonepower Speed test to check. Once I got a good connection, we could have flawless conversations around world, without problems.

[frustratedvoipuser]

So, when the call quality is unacceptable, I've measured the download and upload bandwidth, and they both appear to be fine. The Ooma technical support says the problem is jitter. I had him on the line with me and we measured download rates exceeding 10 mbits/sec and uploades exceeding 2 mbits/sec. However the jitter as measured by pingtest.net was all over the place.

So, Comcast's voip works fine but Ooma doesn't. If it was simply bandwidth, how does Comcast guarantee performance? And of course my next question is why can't they do it when I use Ooma?

Alan

[thunderbird]

So, when the call quality is unacceptable, I've measured the download and upload bandwidth, and they both appear to be fine. The Ooma technical support says the problem is jitter. I had him on the line with me and we measured download rates exceeding 10 mbits/sec and uploades exceeding 2 mbits/sec. However the jitter as measured by pingtest.net was all over the place.

So, Comcast's voip works fine but Ooma doesn't. If it was simply bandwidth, how does Comcast guarantee performance? And of course my next question is why can't they do it when I use Ooma?

Alan

The only way I or anyone else on this forum can even start to give you a better answer, is for you to wait until you are having problems with your Ooma Telo, and then test with Phonepower Speedtest and post the results here.

[lbmofo]

frustratedvoipuser, I have cable (non Comcast), so do a few of my Ooma friends (Comcast). Ooma does fine with cable service on the regular internet. If you have quality issues intermittently, something is not right with your internet service. If you don't want to spend too much time figuring out the source of the issue, try swapping out your modem. That may cure your problems.