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

[Jenny]

Hi chris_enfield,

Thanks for getting back to us.

There’s a couple of things I’d like to you try:

Firstly please lower the security firewall settings as this usually resolves call quality issues.

Secondly, please check your MTU settings as follows:

Log into your admin page for your router

Find the location of the MTU field. This varies depending on the make and model of router so you’ll need to hunt around for it.

Change the value of the MTU size to 1500

Log out of the router, this will usually result in a reboot

-Perform hard rest of the VSS unit by

-Hold in the reset button until all the light go solid

-Pull the power lead out with the reset button still pushed in

-Continue to hold down the reset button and reconnect the power lead

-Wait for all of the lights to come on then release the reset button

-The VSS will now try to contact the network and download its profile. This may take anything up to 6 hours.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,

Jenny

[chris_enfield]

Hi Jenny, tried to log onto my super hub but could not.  Advice was to reboot back to factory settings.  Did that and before trying your suggestions I received a phone call and it had perfect sound.  Tested with a couple of calls and the audio quality problem appears solved.

So it seems a simple factory re-set of the virgin super hub solved the issue.  Thanks anyway for your help.

[bilgeon]

Hi Simon, when you say 'have I tried it with another router' are you suggesting that I call Virgin Media and ask them to send me another unit? I don't have spare routers sitting around waiting to be swapped in. Other than trial and error are there any other technical arguments I can have with them? You haven't yet asked me what type of router I am using. Maybe there have been common problems with certain types of routers? I need a little more detail to be able to have the discussion. Trust you understand.

Bill 

[Jenny]

Hi chris_enfield,

That’s brilliant to see! Thanks for letting me know!

Hi Bilgeon,

As the Sure Signal worked fine in another location we know that there’s no fault with the unit itself.

As above, please try lowering the security firewall settings as this usually resolves call quality issues.

Please also check your MTU settings as follows:

Log into your admin page for your router

Find the location of the MTU field. This varies depending on the make and model of router so you’ll need to hunt around for it.

Change the value of the MTU size to 1500

Log out of the router, this will usually result in a reboot

Perform hard rest of the VSS unit by:

-Hold in the reset button until all the light go solid

-Pull the power lead out with the reset button still pushed in

-Continue to hold down the reset button and reconnect the power lead

-Wait for all of the lights to come on then release the reset button

-The VSS will now try to contact the network and download its profile. This may take anything up to 6 hours.

Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,

Jenny

[bilgeon]

Hi Jenny, I set the MTU size to 1500. The default was 0 on the Virgin Media box I have. All rebooted and brief calls to voicemail aren't breaking up as they did before. Will try a few calls tomorrow and get back to you.

Thanks

Bill

[bilgeon]

Jenny and all, I had a long call on mobile yesterday which worked fine. Seems the MTU size change did the trick. Thanks for the support.

Bill

[bobsta]

Hi folks,

I have a repeatable issue with my Sure Signal. Whenever I make or receive a call using it, the call is fine for the first 25-35 seconds, and then the audio transmission stops. By this I mean that no audio from my mobile is sent to the other party. I can hear the other party fine but they can't hear me. After a further 30 secs or so the call drops completely.

I'm consistently able to reproduce this (and test it by calling my landline phone)... and it's blummin annoying(!)

I've reset my Sure Signal following the instructions on the Voda website (hold down reset button, unplug, plug back in whilst holding down reset). That hasn't solved the issue.

My ISP is PlusNet. Speedtests yield around 7.8Mbps down, 760kbps up. Ping around 32-36ms.

The fact that the call initially works would indicate to me it's not a bandwidth/contention problem.

MTU is set to the maximum my router will allow - 1492. It cannot be set higher than this. I can, of course, lower it if required - but everything else on my network is working flawlessly.

My Sure Signal is a Gen 2. Serial 40123759546.

Any advice would be appreciated. Right now I may as well switch it off.

[Retired-Dave]

Hi bobsta,

Whilst it may make a bandwidth issue less likely, it doesn't rule it out completely.

I've done a resync of the Sure Signal, so can you do another reset of the box for me - the steps above are correct.

If that doesn't change things, can you do a traceroute just so we can check for anything which might show up?

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

 On a Mac:

• Open Terminal (Applications, Utilities)
• Type traceroute 212.183.133.177 and press Enter

Paste the output of this command into your reply.

Dave

[bobsta]

Hi Dave,

Thanks. I reset it last night and left it to sort itself out.

Had a call this morning and it did the same thing... although it did give me around 2 mins of talking before it cut me off. Up until that point the audio was crystal clear with no jitter - then it suddenly went.

Traceroute is as follows:

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

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms my.router [192.168.1.254]

2 21 ms 21 ms 22 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.185 ]

3 21 ms 21 ms 20 ms link4-central10.pcl-gw02.plus.net [84.93.249.102 ]

4 20 ms 21 ms 20 ms te2-2.ptw-gw01.plus.net [212.159.1.54]

5 20 ms 19 ms 22 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]

6 25 ms 23 ms 25 ms lndgw2.arcor-ip.net [195.66.224.124]

7 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms 85.205.116.6

8 * * * Request timed out.

9 * * * Request timed out.

10 ^C

[Retired-James]

Hi bobsta,

Thanks for getting back to us.

From what you have said it sounds like the VPN connection for the Sure Signal is being disconnected.

I’m not sure if Plusnet have any kind of firewalls that could cause this or not so it may be worth asking them the question.

On a side note, as it does initially work, would you be able to test it on a different internet connection to see if it is provider related or the actual Sure Signal that is causing the problem?

If it works seamlessly on a different internet connection then we know that the Sure Signal is fine and it’s something on the connection that’s causing it to drop.

James