Broadband Connection Test
Are You Getting What
You Are Paying For?

Use my broadband connection test to avoid a VoIP service problem. Make sure your VoIP connection is low latency and jitter free. Be assured trouble free "business class" phone service right from the start by understanding what makes a good voice over IP connection and the challenges that befall them.

Unfortunately, many times business owners and other business decision-makers simply assume a VoIP phone service implementation is going to save them money. The reality is there are many important factors not only in the equipment but also the Internet connection that need to be considered.

E-Dude's broadband connection test will test the quality of your Internet connection. By the way, if you fail the VoIP speed test below, and if you're a business user, you might want to Contact me by filling out this form.

Your Customers May Be The Only Ones
Who Know You Have A Problem

In the long-run it's difficult to know without using a VoIP speed test like my broadband connection test whether or not you will have a high enough quality connection to support a quality phone call and avoid a voip service problem.

The information included in your broadband connection test will provide a fairly detailed explanation of what makes a good VoIP connection. We have things such as jitter, Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and latency, all of which are measures of the way in which the voice over IP data packets are delivered from one location to another.

In a general sense we've learned that voice and video are "real-time data needs" and as such simply cannot tolerate any type of latency or delay within the network that is providing the end to end communication of the voice service.

The Internet Can Mess With Our VoIP Packets

Unfortunately the Internet is a public place. It is rife with lots of data traffic, broken connections, improperly configured routers and numerous other pitfalls. Not to mention congestion, hackers and all sorts of various other challenges that will delay or worse yet completely lose our voice over IP packets in transit.

This is a good time to explain that my broadband connection test shows it's imperative our voice packets:

1. Arrive at the receiving end of the communication
2. Arrive on time (and this is measured in milliseconds)
3. Arrive in the correct order

For this reason we learned that in a general sense we many times get what we pay for with regard to our Internet connection, and we want to assure adequate upstream (upload) bandwidth which is important for a quality VoIP connection and phone call. See my VoIP problems page for more on this.

So, the broadband connection test below is a type of VoIP speed test that actually measures many of these important metrics on your connection so that you can see if it will support a quality VoIP phone service call. As has been mentioned before, it is important to test your connection on a regular basis and at different times of the day, as all internet connections have many facets, both locally and "out on the internet" that can affect the quality of the connection.

Leave A Life Rope, Err, Line Behind…

In a general sense of course we can only control the network within our own building and the type of internet or VoIP service provider and then our own Internet connection (both tested using my broadband connection test). Once the data packets get out to the general Internet all bets are off and although rare, catastrophic slowdowns or major Internet damage can severely impact our voice conversations.

For this reason I always recommend "leaving a line behind" this refers to at least one "out of band", stand-alone analog phone line from the local phone company. This so as to assure we have a lifeline to the world in the event our VoIP phone service isn't working for some reason. A good choice for this line is the fax line or burglar alarm or elevator line.

The broadband connection test below will assure you know the score on these issues. Please note, it basically only tests for CAPACITY of a single VoIP phone service call, although the VoIP test will validate the overall quality of your Internet connection.

Click Here To Test The Quality
Of Your Internet Connectivity For VoIP

OK, What Is The Deal...
A.K.A. What Really Messes With My VoIP?

So How'd you do? Was your MOS score above 3.5?

If not, let's become familiar with a few of the terms that we shall see when doing a VoIP speed test on your connection with my broadband connection test above.

Also if you're a business user, you might want to Contact me (E-Dude) Now

Latency -- this is a measure of the delay from one point in a network to another. So let's say it's the time it takes for voice over IP packets to leave your location and arrive at the person that is receiving them or listening to your phone call. This can also be a round trip measurement, i.e.: to the person you're talking to and then back again to you.

Without getting complicated, what's important here is there is no latency perceptible to the human ear and this is measured in milliseconds.

E-Dude's bandwidth connection test above will tell you if your latency is acceptable, let's face it, there's nothing more frustrating and confusing than having to wait to talk because of delay in the conversation.

Arggg Jitter Sounds Nasty!

Jitter -- this is essentially the variation over time of the latency within the network. We know increased latency is bad enough i.e.: the longer the time it takes for packets (increased latency) to go from one point to another can be disastrous for VoIP.

So jitter compounds our challenges with having a quality business class VoIP phone call by introducing a wide variation in the delay (latency). So here you not only have to wait to talk, and then wait to listen to the other party, but you're not even sure at any given point in the conversation how long you have to wait or how long it's going to take for them to hear you!

Needless to say this is completely unacceptable for a voip for business phone call, and unfortunately many of these issues are routinely encountered with "best effort" Internet services such as those discussed on my VoIP problems page.

Add to this that a single VoIP phone service call may not be impaired, or may test OK with my broadband connection test and other tools I provide, but as more and more people at your business start making calls, the network may become congested and impaired enough to slow down and start exhibiting problems like latency and jitter.

Excuse Me, Ummm I Think I've lost a few Packets
And Now I Can't Understand You...

Packet Loss - this, combined with out of order packet delivery are completely catastrophic to a voip for business call, with the more packets being lost the worse the conversation. Here we have a situation where we are losing packets or they are arriving out of order due to the routing through the network and we start to have gaps in the conversation and unintelligible words etc.

Needless to say this is completely unacceptable. Fortunately packet loss is a much rarer condition than jitter and latency. The bottom line is most Internet service providers to do a pretty decent job of at least making sure the packets get their destination at some point.

Q.O.S. Is That Anything Like Floss?
Well, They Are Both Shiny And Helpful
(and they rhyme now don't they?)

Quality of Service (QOS) - a term generally incorrectly used by salespeople within the industry to indicate some sort of measure of quality. In reality it's applicable to the ability to reserve resources within the network either within your business or within the service provider's network, to provide for control mechanisms that will provide a quality phone call.

Herein lays the importance of avoiding the best effort networks and in understanding that Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are available from quality provider's of business-class Internet connections. If you want more information on providers in your area, visit my contact E-Dude page and I can point you in the right direction.

If you've read my VoIP problems and done a VoIP speed test using my broadband speed test pages then you understand you do indeed get what you pay for when it comes to Internet access. Although sometimes DSL and cable modems can serve nicely, the larger the organization, and the more concurrent phone calls over the data link, the less likely ADSL or other best effort services will provide a reliable, quality connection for business VoIP phone service.

Business Needs Differ From Residential

My broadband connection test has hopefully given you a good overall view of the quality and capacity of your Internet connection to support a quality voice over IP or VoIP phone service telephone call.

Of course in the residential "Magic Jack" and cable modem market we're not so concerned with an occasional dropped call, missing parts of the conversation or chopped up data streams resulting in garbled voice communications. In fact I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of people per day using things like Magic Jack and Cox cable phone service that experience this on a regular basis.

It's not until we get into the "mission critical" business need that we start to understand that voice over IP must be properly implemented to assure a quality VoIP for business call on an end to end basis.

Avoid Costly Mistakes! E-Dude Helps You Choose Best VoIP Providers
Did you fail the broadband connection test?

Best VoIP Providers, don't spend thousands of dollars on business phone service equipment you don't need and may not understand.

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