Quality of Service

Run Quality of Service Tests

Run Quality of Service Tests

Quality of Service is a measurement of fluctuations in download and upload bandwidth over an extended time.
For example, running a speed test will give you a single result for upload and download. What a QOS test does is it continually tests the upload and download streams with a large amount of data to measure how consistent the speeds are.
If a connection is tested to have 2000kbps download and 500kbps upload, a QOS test will tell you how consistent that connection is while it is actively used, because if that 500kbps of upload bandwidth is dropping to 50-100kbps at random, we won't see that in a bandwidth test.
A low QOS result would indicate that the bandwidth is consistently below the highest speed test result for download and upload.
These results can be confusing because there is no magic QOS number. A result of 80% may not indicate a problem, and a result of 50% may not either (if the bandwidth is tested to be extremely high).
A QOS test should always be done in addition to bandwidth, ping, and trace route tests to get the full picture of the customer's internet connection.

To run a QOS test:

1. Make sure you are not talking on the Vonage line while having a customer run a QOS test. Its also important to make sure that the customer is hard-wired into their internet rather than connected wirelessly.
2. Use a site such as (link) http://myvoipspeed.visualware.com to run a QOS test. The customer would simply select the location closest to them on the map to begin the test.
   A site like MyVoipSpeed also provides other helpful network diagnostics, such as download and upload speed, jitter, and packet loss. But again, running a ping and trace route are still necessary since this test is not run against the media relay server.
   • Some results under Detailed Analysis may be helpful for certain issues, like Upstream Discards and Downstream Discards. Discards are packets that were lost due to jitter, such as packets that could not fit into the jitter buffer.
   • Discards are essentially lost packets, but the reason for them being lost is different. You can usually adjust the jitter buffer on a customer's device (make it larger) to accommodate packet discards. These detailed results also provide you with information such as which direction has packet loss, indicating that the loss is either from the customer (upstream) or from somewhere on the internet (downstream), which may be an ISP issue.