What Factors Affect Voice Quality in VoIP Calls

Surviving in this Information age can be a daunting task, if right and reliable equipment are not deployed to administer business solutions. As the tech space is expanding, the complexities associated with deployment of software in businesses are growing. And some of the biggest concerns are coming forward from the ‘VoIP services’ deployed in the business communication world.

Issues such as voice quality, bandwidth often outweigh the slew of benefits offered by VoIP services. However, a lot of improvements have been made in this space but the resources and businesses are extremely finicky about loads of factors that affect the VoIP call quality.

So, here are some factors that affect the voice quality in VoIP calls:

1. Bandwidth Issues and Network Parameters

Issues pertaining to voice quality can worsen in case of shared network. The quality of network transmission dampens as the network load increases. Setting high priority to voice packets over data packets can make a significant difference in your network load.

Other aspects of voice communications such as call success ratio (successful connects: dial attempts), call set-up times, call set-up rate are also strong determinants that affect voice call quality. Type of protocol used such as H.323 or SIP also impacts the performance of Voice over IP as different processes are handled distinctly by each of them.

2. Type of Codec

Every business environment with VoIP/IP telephony applies an audio codec to condense the audio signals at one end and de-condense the same at the other edge. Examples of some of the standardized codec’s are G.723, G.729a etc. VoIP call quality depends considerably on the type of codec deployed as higher the compression of data, lesser will be the data size transmitted over the other end.

The type of codec also affects the VoIP call quality. Most of the codecs can accommodate different target compression rates such as 5.3 Kbps, 8 Kbps, 6.4 Kbps, etc. More CPU resources are required to incorporate complex codecs which in turn affects the VoIP call quality.

3. Cycle of Jitter and Jitter Buffer

Wireless connections often go through the trouble such as Jittering. Codec sends the packets with equal spacing between them. At the decompression level, it is expected that the packets must arrive with equal spacing between them and in the same order.

However, as there are network delays at the packet level, the packets may reach at the different time intervals and in a distorted manner. And this puts an impact on the quality of VoIP calls. To overcome this hassle, the jitter buffer is induced to allow calculated delay before sending packets for decompression.

4. Incorporating Out-of-date Equipment

Poor VoIP call quality can arise due to hindrances caused by outdated routers, cable modems, and firewalls. Either updating the router software or replacement of the equipment can help to improve the VoIP call quality. Working or consulting the VoIP service provider can help to recognize the problems associated with VoIP call quality issues more efficiently and deal with them in a timely manner.

5. Echo Issues

Conversion of IP media to digital/analog signals and vice versa forms an essential part of IP telephony. Due to this conversion, an echo gets induced at several points in the network.  Hybrid and Acoustic are broadly two types of echo generated in the network. Usually, it is a cumbersome task to monitor echo, but certain vendors with the aid of hardware and software modules offer echo cancelation at the gateway level where the translation occurs.

Conclusion

Most of the issues mentioned above can be met with the aid of specialized tools and equipment, eliminating any hassle associated with the VoIP services. This, in turn, ensures nothing impedes the speed of business processes and helps to build a robust working environment.