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

[delbert-21]

Hi just about had it with Vodafone very poor signal on 3g, 2g not a lot better, now have a sure signal, eventually managed to get it to work but voice quality is total rubbish,  I am on a 20 meg virgin media broadband so have sufficient bandwidth now looking to terminate both contracts as Vodafone have broken there's by not providing a satisfactory usable service, spend a bit more on the network and not on sponsorship and things may improve.

[Retired-PaulE]

Hi delbert-21, 

I'm sorry you feel this way, I'd love to see if I can help - can you take a look at our Sure Signal Troubleshooting thread. If this doesn’t resolve your query, please post your reply either below, or in the relevant thread, together with the details requested, including the following information.

Your speed test results from here.

Your ping test results from here.

Your external IP address from here.

The results of a traceroute.

Your Sure Signal serial number:

VSS Traceroute command

On a PC:

Click on Start and select Run

Type CMD into the Run box and press enter/click ok

A black box will appear.

In this box type tracert 212.183.133.177 press Enter

Paste the output of this command into your reply.

This will help us get the quickest possible resolution for you.

Thanks

Paul

[delbert-21]

Paul

Haven't had time to do the tests you have requested, what I have done is to look further a field for a solution, I have now been advised to look at port forwarding which I have now set and at present the quality seems acceptable, still not at all happy with the coverage with Vodafone and will be looking at terminating both contracts as soon as possible, unfortunately we still have over a year left to run, I would be most grateful if you could advise who I can contact to see if we can terminate as in my view Vodafone have not provided the service I signed up for.

I have been a mobile user since the very start of mobile in the UK and at one point managed over 1000 mobiles, I must say that my home coverage was better then than now, this is the first time in so many years that I have had to have a sure signal to ensure that I can use a mobile that I am paying service charge for and may I add I have to use my own infrastructure to support it,  its not what I signed up for.

[MarkEBee]

Hi,

my girlfriend uses a VF SS but some times the uplink audio quality is poor. (She can hear the caller but they cannot hear her). It's a Virgin media hub and internet connection.

She normally experiences the audio problems when she's working form home and has a VPN connection to her employer. I've just run the speed and ping tests with and without the work VPN connection, rersults below.

No VPN Connection

DL: 39.99 Mbps

UL: 2.89 Mbps

Ping: 39 ms

Packet loss: 0 %

Ping: 41 ms

Jitter: 21 ms

With VPN Connection

DL; 36.84 Mbps

UL: 2.87 Mbps

Ping: 24 ms

Packet loss 0%

Ping: 46 ms

Jitter: 31 ms

Although the speeds are reduced with the VPN connection active I think thery still meet the minimum requirements. Can you confirm this?

Trace route results are below:

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

1 30 ms 12 ms 24 ms cpc16-dals17-2-0-gw.hari.cable.virginmedia.com [IP Address]
2 21 ms 32 ms 64 ms hari-core-2a-ae4-621.network.virginmedia.net [IP Address]
3 33 ms 62 ms 44 ms brnt-bb-1a-ae8-0.network.virginmedia.net [IP Address]
4 192 ms 17 ms 29 ms glfd-bb-1b-as1-0.network.virginmedia.net [IP Address]
5 36 ms 23 ms 23 ms glfd-tmr-1-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [IP Address]
6 122 ms 38 ms 30 ms tcl5-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [IP Address]
7 27 ms 118 ms 35 ms LDNGW1.arcor-ip.net [IP Address]
8 52 ms 30 ms 82 ms 85.205.116.14
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

I'm not sure what the trace route results mean, maybe you cam advise if that makes sense?

Sure Signal serial number: 40122442128

If it's not a bandwidth problem I guess the other thing to check is interference between the WiFi wireless connection and the 3G wireless?

[Retired-PaulE]

Hi MarkEBee, 

Your speeds look fine and they're well within the tolerances the Sure Signal needs to operate effectively.

Your traceroute shows you hitting our servers after 8 hops which is fine too.

We're aware of some issues when using a SureSignal with a Virgin Media cable, these can lead to poor audio quality in some instances.

Can you make sure that the router and the Sure Signal are as far apart as the cable allows?

Also, does the quality change at specific times of day? Can you record a few examples of times - also, is possible when an issue occurs try to run a speed test to see what speeds you're actually achieving at the time.

@delbert-21, 

I've sent you a PM so that we can have a chat about your issues - follow the instructions on contacting the team and we'll be in touch as soon as we can.

You can find your PM inbox here

Paul 

[ajdetpwm]

I think I might have something here.

I have the new v3 sure signal , the one with power socket pass through.

I also have Virgin media super hub - 60Mbps.

I have been having frequent terrible call quality issues.

I have now switched the super hub to modem only mode and am using the old DLink 615 as DHCP, wireless & router.

So far so good, have had 3 long calls this morning, all absolutley perfect.

So whilst I cant tell you why the superhub and VSS dont like each other, it seems that bypassing the super hub could be a workaround.

Maybe some others can pin down why this might be.

would also seem to allay the fears over VM agressive packet shaping

[Sukhi]

ajdetpwm

Welcome to the eForum

Thanks for finding this workaround maybe other users can try this to see if it works for them?

Sukhi

[Moisie]

Hello Vodafone:

I also have been suffering poor audio quality - particularly outbound - whenever we use our mobiles through the SureSignal. Ideally we would like to dispense with it entirely - but a complete lack of mast signal in the office means we have no choice but to suffer the dropped calls and unintelligibility that our SureSignal provides.

I have already tried:

• Repositioning the VSS away from any wifi base stations;
• Resetting the VSS;
• Setting up the port forwarding as per the 8th post in this thread.

Our phones - 4 x iPhone 4S, 1 x Xperia something and 1 x HTC something - all suffer from this problem in the office, but work as expected in other locations. My iPhone is showing a full five bars, so it is clearly connecting to the VSS correctly.

Our connection details:

Speedtest.net:

• Ping: 119ms
• Download: 13.41Mbps
• Upload: 0.69Mbps

Pingtest.net:

• Ping: 161ms
• Jitter: 84ms

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) 12.589 ms 0.655 ms 0.548 ms
2 host81-134-80-1.in-addr.btopenworld.com (81.134.80.1) 348.224 ms 360.393 ms 369.319 ms
3 213.120.182.141 (213.120.182.141) 367.559 ms 386.369 ms 393.429 ms
4 213.120.161.82 (213.120.161.82) 406.946 ms 415.606 ms 456.311 ms
5 31.55.164.41 (31.55.164.41) 447.394 ms 439.595 ms 172.918 ms
6 31.55.164.107 (31.55.164.107) 25.538 ms 24.805 ms 24.184 ms
7 acc1-10gige-0-5-0-7.bm.21cn-ipp.bt.net (109.159.248.102) 31.261 ms 186.803 ms 178.099 ms
8 core1-te0-3-0-3.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.20) 200.358 ms
core1-te0-3-0-2.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.16) 231.041 ms
core1-te0-15-0-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.248.12) 262.065 ms
9 peer1-xe3-2-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.254.205) 268.801 ms 278.064 ms 291.548 ms
10 lndgw2.arcor-ip.net (195.66.224.124) 294.134 ms 358.331 ms 327.085 ms
11 85.205.116.14 (85.205.116.14) 326.150 ms 349.538 ms 370.030 ms
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *
17 * * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *

SureSignal (version 2) serial number: 40114234301

Router: Netgear DG834 v4.01.40, connected to BT

Anything else you can suggest to help us get our business mobiles running better?!

Many thanks.

[MarcF-VM]

I've been having audio quality problems for as long as I can remember, I'd really appreciate some help.

Sure Signal: Version 2

Symptoms: I can hear the other party fine, I cut out frequently for them/very poor quality. Sometimes when I pick up a call, it just sounds garbled. Phone works fine when I turn 3G off.

Device: iPhone 4S

ISP: Virgin Media

Router: Virgin Media Superhub (though previously had problems too with a Cisco Linksys Router/Cisco Modem)

IP Address: 86.15.7.215

Traceroute:

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

> tracert 212.183.133.177

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

1 14 ms 16 ms 14 ms cpc23-thor5-2-0-gw.14-2.cable.virginmedia.com [8
6.15.7.1]
2 15 ms 14 ms 12 ms renf-core-2a-ae4-3980.network.virginmedia.net [8
2.23.161.85]
3 17 ms 28 ms 15 ms manc-bb-1c-ae13-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.25
3.174.37]
4 78 ms 17 ms 19 ms manc-bb-1b-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.159.89]
5 22 ms 21 ms 23 ms nrth-bb-1a-as3-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.64.21]
6 37 ms 21 ms 23 ms nrth-tmr-1-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [213.10
5.159.30]
7 35 ms 36 ms 35 ms fran-ic-1-as0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.253.
185.81]
8 40 ms 39 ms 39 ms FFMGW4.arcor-ip.net [80.81.193.117]
9 44 ms 47 ms 47 ms 92.79.213.133
10 42 ms 43 ms 42 ms 92.79.213.154
11 39 ms 36 ms 41 ms 85.205.116.6
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * ^C

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jenny]

Hi Moisie,

The results of your traceroute show that your hops are too high as these should be way below 200ms.

This will explain why you’re experiencing poor audio quality and is something you’ll need to speak with your ISP about.

Hi MarcF-VM,

Your traceroute looks fine and your IP address is on our whitelist

Please can you get back to me with your Sure Signal serial number and we can check this further.

Many thanks,

Jenny