Volume amplification quality?

[adrienqa66]

Hello! I have a Linksys RT31PT-AL from Voipo. I was wondering what people thought of the Volume amplification feature that can be accessed through the vPanel by going to Features --> Preferences --> Advanced.

You can set the volume of what you hear and what the other person hears separately.

There are multiple settings: Normal, High, Very High, Extremely High, Low, Very Low, Extremely Low.

After setting, the website says you need to reboot your router.

I had this enabled to be higher volume on both ends (for both callers) and I thought it sounded echoey, but I didn't give it much of a chance really. I also had it set really high... the Extremely High setting perhaps.

Interestingly, today I've noticed when checking my voicemail, the volume is lower in volume than usual.

I always have my phone's volume set to be at the max. volume it can be set at and check it constantly, so I know it isn't that.

Just wondering if people have tried the feature.

Thanks!

[holmes4]

I tried it today - people had been complaining that my voice was soft. I found that both the incoming and outgoing volumes were set to Low. I set them to Normal and so far it seems better.

[VOIPoDanielC]

I had this enabled to be higher volume on both ends (for both callers) and I thought it sounded echoey, but I didn't give it much of a chance really. I also had it set really high... the Extremely High setting perhaps.

This is a common problem. If you set the amplification too high on the ATA and have a bad or old cable between the ATA and your phone, you can get interference between the gain for the input and the output.

Also, if there's any point along the audio path for the call that doesn't take well to over compensated volumes, such as a switch at the destination end, then you might get echoes there as well.

It's safer to just use the amplification that is built into your phone rather than using the ATA's amplification feature.

Just my $.02.

[holmes4]

Phones rarely have the ability to amplify what is sent.

[VOIPoDanielC]

Phones rarely have the ability to amplify what is sent.

While that is true, if the other person is having problems hearing, maybe they have the volume set too low on their side.

[DA_MAN]

I respect your comments Danial, but... The Linksys's output are below industry standard. (Meaning way under telex published specs...) and unless one is in a home using cloth covered twin lead from the stone ages, (I can give you the figures for where an average consumer telephone's cheap handset wire fails too...) or what was once installed (through RJ45... as now its Ethernet...) you won't see cross talk. Echo is possible at switching and in the PBX system, but there's much more to that too and no need to get into that for the OP....

Without making this so it confuses everyone by giving a bunch of data and the like, its OK and expected to turn up if people can't hear you as they should not be able to, for with the default set to low or even higher, it is far below telex standards...

If you have a newer home, they would have run Ethernet rather than RJ-45 anyway and its rejection is so high, one could melt the wire before expecting crosstalk (figuratively speaking... if it melts the wire, yes, cross-talk occurs prior, but come on!!!!)

I have a major issue too; I need to turn it up, but with our complex network, when I set all the routing to give the device only the priority it should need, I accidentally hit the NAT function. Now naturally I can no longer log into my router due to the conflict!!!! ARGH

For the record, I love VOIPo; from employees, to the actual service, but with this ancient recycled Linksys (which is fine) the notion that I could fix this with a hard reset and someone was too (dumb?) to not set the devices up with the provisioning area in the FLASH that IS protected (NOT THE VOLATILE AREA...) so a hard reset would not "break" it and now want to charge us $35, incenses me to no end! SO, no, no one can hear my calls either.... And won't unless someone says they will re-provisioning the unit from a hard re-set for free... I am amplifying it outside and that's something no one should have to do!

[DA_MAN]

Wow, that's the ATA settings at VOIPo - no wonder I could measure no real difference (but push it to distortion...) on our end here... Doh, let's try this now... BTW, VOIPo, your system(s) are still low on the default settings; my stupidity does not change that any... :-)