Sure Signal - Call Audio Quality Issues

[Retired-George]

This issue has the following symptoms:

• Poor audio quality on both outbound and inbound calls
• Particularly affects customers using a Virgin Media cable connection

If you’re only experiencing poor audio quality one-way (for example, the call sounds fine to you, but the person you are calling reports poor quality), then this is most likely due to insufficient bandwidth on your broadband connection and is not an issue with your Sure Signal.

Troubleshooting:

If the person you are calling can’t hear you, this is usually caused by low upload speeds.

If you can't hear the person you've called, this is due to low download speeds.

Check if your broadband connection meets the minimum requirements.

Please run the broadband speed checker.

If your connection fails any part of the test, this indicates an issue with your Internet Service Provider and you’ll need to contact them to discuss this further.

Your connection speed will vary throughout the day, so we recommend running it at various times to get an accurate reading.

Check for planned maintenance.
Planned maintenance can cause periods of downtime, so check the forum for any planned maintenance. If there is, this will be announced at the top of the Sure Signal forum.

Reset your Sure Signal:

Sure Signal version 1

• Connect device to internet and power supply

• Press and hold down the reset button (located near the internet port) until end of the process which will be indicated

• Remove the power cable at back of the unit and wait for five seconds

• Reconnect the power cable back to device

• Wait for the LED sequence to flash from top to bottom and back to top

• Wait for five seconds

• Release the reset button

• Within 10 minutes, all the 4 LEDs will start to flash in sequence – 1^st & 3^rd then 2^nd & 4^th then 1^st & 3^rd – with the sequence repeated. This sequence indicates the start of the factory reset procedure.

Sure Signal version 2

• • Connect device to internet and power supply
  • Press and hold down reset button – located near the internet port
  • Wait for all the LED (power + 2 white LED) to light up for few seconds (power LED will always remain lit)
  • Wait for five seconds
  • Release the reset button
    
    
  • Within 10 minutes, 2 white LEDs will start flashing continuously – power LED will always remain constant in addition (unless there is an issue with local connectivity)

Sure Signal version 3

• • Connect device to internet and power supply
  • Press and hold down reset button – located near the internet port
  • Wait for 20 seconds
  • Release the reset button
    
    
  • All the LEDs will temporarily switch off for about 10 seconds. The power LED will then light up and remain constant whilst white internet LED flashes continuously.

The Sure Signal will be back online in around 1 hour.

Move Your Sure Signal Away from the Router
Sometimes the Wi-Fi signal from the router can interfere with the 3G signal from the Sure Signal and this could result in poor audio quality.

In order to prevent this from happening, please ensure that your Sure Signal is moved away from the router as far as the cable will allow.

If you’re still experiencing poor audio quality, post in this thread and we can look into it further.

Thanks,

Jenny

[Moisie]

Hi Jenny:

Thanks for the response; I'll see what I can dig up with BT!

[Moisie]

Hello Jenny:

Ok - I've been looking into our high ping problems, and it looks like there's an intermittent issue with one of the devices on our network causing this.

Most of the people from our office are out today, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to have another look into things. Here are my current findings:

Speedtest.net:

• Ping: 56ms
• Download: 15.74Mbps
• Upload: 0.90Mbps

Pingtest.net:

• Ping: 55ms
• Jitter: 26ms

IP Address: 81.136.232.151

Traceroute:

traceroute to 212.183.133.177 (212.183.133.177), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 www.routerlogin.com (192.168.181.1) 1.130 ms 0.631 ms 0.824 ms
2 host81-134-64-1.in-addr.btopenworld.com (81.134.64.1) 23.577 ms 23.606 ms 22.744 ms
3 213.120.182.141 (213.120.182.141) 23.924 ms 23.490 ms 23.116 ms
4 213.120.161.82 (213.120.161.82) 25.114 ms 24.749 ms 23.758 ms
5 31.55.164.41 (31.55.164.41) 23.827 ms 23.917 ms 24.163 ms
6 31.55.164.107 (31.55.164.107) 25.042 ms 24.865 ms 25.053 ms
7 acc1-10gige-0-1-0-5.bm.21cn-ipp.bt.net (109.159.248.90) 23.970 ms 23.926 ms 23.652 ms
8 core1-te0-4-0-4.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.4) 35.738 ms
core1-te0-2-5-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.0) 44.887 ms
core2-te-0-15-0-0.ilford.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.14) 33.215 ms
9 peer1-xe0-1-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.132) 28.909 ms 29.224 ms 29.636 ms
10 lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124) 34.281 ms 35.960 ms 42.833 ms
11 85.205.116.14 (85.205.116.14) 29.866 ms 30.652 ms 29.678 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
31 * * *

SureSignal (version 2) serial number: 40114234301

Router: Netgear DG834 v4.01.40, connected to BT

As we were having no calls coming through to our mobiles (via the SureSignal) this morning - they went straight to voicemail, without the phone ringing (even though they were showing full signal), I tried another reset of the SureSignal.

The instructions say to hold the reset button for 30 seconds, until all the lights come on. Well - I've been holding the button for more than 30 seconds, and only the power light remains on - the other two lights remain off until I release the reset button. This is the case both before removing the power and after.

Have we got a bad SureSignal box?

Many thanks for your help.

[Sukhi]

Hi Moisie

Thanks for providing the trace route everything looks fine, the IP is on the whitelist. I can see that the Sure Signal connected to our servers at 23:40 yesterday

Is it possible for you to test it a different location? 

Thanks

Sukhi

[EG1]

Hi,

Suer signal was working reasonably ok most of the time. Some sintance sof poor quality calls were happening. I then upgraded my Broadband to Virgin 60mb download and 3mb upload running from Superhub combined Modem / Router. I do see some issues on here about the superhub which isn't encouraging.

Since the change I now get regualr calls scrambled, loud scrheeching, underwater, Dalek style noises appear erratically during calls. Many times a day. Not good.

Taking a message from above as a guide here are the relevant details:

Your speed test results from here.

28.11mb Down, 2.93mb Up - must ask Virgin about that 60mb service!

Your ping test results from here.

Packet loss 0; Ping 14ms; Jitter 1ms. Grade A

Your external IP address from here.
82.26.5.26

The results of a traceroute.

see below

Your Sure Signal serial number:21224349726

VSS Traceroute command

In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter

Paste the output of this command into your reply.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Briantelly>tracert 212.183.133.177

Tracing route to cluster4.vap.vodafone.co.uk [212.183.133.177]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 8 ms 9 ms 9 ms cmbg-core-1a-ae2-1188.network.virginmedia.net [8
0.1.203.17]
3 10 ms 11 ms 9 ms cmbg-core-1b-ge-100-0.network.virginmedia.net [8
0.1.201.2]
4 11 ms 11 ms 13 ms nrth-bb-1b-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.43
.163.145]
5 13 ms 12 ms 14 ms tele-ic-4-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
174.18]
6 16 ms 15 ms 14 ms LDNGW1.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.209]
7 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms 85.205.116.6
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * *

Any issues or suggestiions in this? I'm hoping to avoid having the superhub in modem only mode and needing to run my old router. 

[Retired-Simon]

Hi EG1

Thanks for your post. If you're using the Sure Signal with a Virgin Media Superhub then we have known on occasions for this to cause call quality issues. We'll need to raise this with our technology team so I've sent a private message with details of how to contact us.

You can find your PM inbox here. If you can't access this link, please ensure that the box next to "Turn on private messages" is ticked on this page, and let us know if you need any further assistance.

Have you tried your Sure Signal with your other router? Are you experiencing the same call quality issue?

Thanks

Simon

[Moisie]

Hello Sukhi:

Thanks for the response. As it happens, I think we've isolated the cause of the problem: we have a number of machines running Dropbox and even though it appeared that Dropbox was far from saturating the upstream bandwidth, our Sure Signal call quality was suffering as a result. As soon as Dropbox syncing was paused, the call quality improved.

So, for the moment, we've throttled our Dropbox upstream connections way back, and call quality is now acceptable. In due course, we'll get a router which supports QoS so we can prioritise the Sure Signal packets.

Thanks for your help on sorting this out.

Moisie.

[MarcF-VM]

Hi Jenny

Thanks for looking into this for me.

Serial Number: 40110709108

Model: 9361 Home Cell V2-V

Part No: 3JR09110ABBA

Rev: 00

[Jenny]

Hi MarcF-VM,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I can see that a location change was previously detected which could simply mean that an IP address change took place. Please try changing your postcode online and then change it back to the correct one. This will ensure the location is fully up to date.

Should the problems with audio quality continue, please can you get back to me with your Sure Signal firmware version and if this is permanent (on every call) or intermittent?

Many thanks,

Jenny 

[MarcF-VM]

Hi Jenny

I'm unable to made the change to the postcode as my online account says it's locked - I did reset the password but it still shows as locked!. I've not moved so the postcode will be the same.

The problems are fairly frequent, I regularly end up turning off 3G on my phone. It's difficult to say, but maybe 30%-70% of all calls have some issues. I can generally always hear the other party fine, but they say I break up or am unclear. I know it's not the phone as it all works fine away from the house where SureSignal is installed.

How can I find out the Sure Signal version?

Thanks

[Jenny]

Hi MarcF-VM,

My apologies, I think I was having a daft moment earlier! :smileysurprised: I meant to ask for your router firmware version not Sure Signal firmware! Oopsy!

No worries, I’ve been able to update your location myself and change it back again. I’ve also resynced your Sure Signal so please complete this process by performing a factory reset as follows:

• Hold the reset button till all the lights come on or flash (about 30 seconds)
• Keeping the rest button held, remove and re-insert the power lead
• Once all the lights come on or flash, release the reset button
• The VSS should come online within the hour

Let me know if this has helped but if not, please get back to me with your router firmware version.  

Cheers,

Jenny