Modern VOIP deployments do not have the traditional issues of poor call quality which was reminiscent of installations of say, five years ago. Nevertheless, call quality is the most sensitive aspect of a VOIP installation and one which users are extremely sensitive too. Fortunately, it is a relatively simple and easy issue to handle – one of the positive aspects of a VOIP installation is that management is greatly simplified and managers do not need extensive training or expertise to perform testing and deploy solutions.
A trace route diagnostic should always be the first test which is run when there are call quality issues being raised. Trace route tests reveal the true latency of the VOIP circuit – latency is the metric which measures the speed an audio data packet cycles around the circuit. Latency is a major problem for users who are exceptionally sensitive to call delay, but fortunately moden VOIP installations are, and should be, free of these problems or if they are affected, they are simply resolved.
A Brix Network Test should also be run to identify the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). The MOS is the perceived call quality at the end of the circuit, i.e. at the side of the call which is being listened to. The MOS is on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest call quality you can expect and 1 the lowest.
One tip with running VOIP tests and diagnostics is to run them through the same part of the network being used by the VOIP system itself.
Finally, testing the network connections should reveal if there are bottlenecks or packet drops occurring. Where data packets overload a router, for instance, it may drop packets and this can result in jitter or delayed packet arrival for meaningful playback of the data.
