Getting VoIP for the First Time? 5 Things You Need to Know.
If you are interested in learning more about how VoIP works, check out my beginner’s guide to internet telephony.
Setting up your system to support VoIP can be overwhelming for anyone, but especially if you’re not an IT professional. In this article, I’ll break down some of the network and hardware requirements and considerations you need to know whether you are setting it up yourself or talking to an IT partner.
Common Terms When Discussing VoIP
Before we delve in too much, we need to go over some common terms that we will be using throughout the article. These terms might already be familiar to you. If that’s the case, just skip to the next section.
Data Packets — while on a VoIP call, the audio is broken down into small segments — usually 10–30 milliseconds of audio, or less than a syllable — converted into a digital format and compressed. This data is sent on the network or internet as a data packet. Those small packets of data are sent to the receiver where they are decompressed and converted back into audio.
Packet Loss — if a data packet is never delivered, that’s called packet loss.
Latency — a measure of the time it takes for a data packet to be transferred between the original source and its destination. This is typically measured in milliseconds (ms).
Ping rate — the time it takes to send and receive a data packet. Having a ping rate below 150 milliseconds is considered good and something between 20–40 milliseconds would be considered great.
Jitter — the variation in the delay of the data packets being received over time. In other words, if each data packet takes different amounts of time to be delivered (or not be delivered), it can cause the audio to sound delayed or jumbled. Some jitter is to be expected and often isn’t a problem if the delay is less than 30 milliseconds.
Network Considerations
Now that you understand some of the terms, let’s talk about how your network can affect your calls. Since VoIP uses the internet to make and receive calls, if your network connection is poor, it’s going to lead to a lot of call quality issues. VoIP is reliant on a good stable internet connection and available bandwidth.
When trying to calculate the right plan from your Internet Service Provider (ISP), we recommend having at least 1 Mbps download per device and 200 kbps upload per device. This will cover both your phone needs, plus normal internet usage in the office, but we recommend taking a look at your current internet usage to ensure you have plenty of bandwidth for your VoIP phones.
It’s a good idea to periodically do a speed test to understand if your network is performing as well as you think it should. I personally like using Cloudflare’s speed test tool because there is more information than just download and upload speeds.
Before you sign up with Weave, or during the onboarding process, we will also conduct a network audit, which tells Weave a little bit about your current network bandwidth and ISP performance. If we see any issues, we will let you know and provide some recommendations on how to get your network ready for a VoIP system.
Hardware Considerations
Unfortunately, your network isn’t the only thing to think about when setting up a VoIP system. The equipment you use to connect that network to the internet into your office can have a big impact on the quality of your phone calls.
Let’s start at your modem and router. Weave has tested some different modems and routers and has a list of recommendations here. But just having that hardware would be too easy. You also need to make sure they are set up and configured for your VoIP calls. Here are five things to check.
First, make sure your modem and router support VoIP calls and traffic. VoIP uses special protocols in order to make each call happen. If your modem or router doesn’t allow that type of traffic, you won’t be able to make or receive calls.
Second, check your firewall settings. A firewall helps keep your network safe and secure by tracking the traffic coming in and out of your router, but sometimes it can interfere with Weave phones communicating to the Weave server that’s outside of your office. You will need to make sure the firewall isn’t blocking or restricting any of that traffic. You can read more about those settings here.
Third, many routers also allow you to set up Quality of Service, or QoS. This is a fancy way of saying you can set up a list of rules about which devices’ traffic you want to be prioritized. For example if you have a Weave phone and a computer that are competing for bandwidth, the QoS tells your router to prioritize sending and receiving the phone’s data packets over the computer’s. This will help make your calls, which are much more sensitive to latency and jitter, have better quality over something like Netflix or a web page loading. While we recommend setting it up, we can’t give guidance on how since it is different depending on your router.
Fourth, let’s talk about your switch. Because we want to make VoIP calls as stable as possible, we don’t recommend using WiFI. Instead, you’ll want to connect each device into an ethernet port.
Lastly, once you have your switch in place, you need an ethernet cable to connect your phone to the switch. Not all ethernet cables are created equal; in fact newer cables can transmit more bandwidth at a faster data rate than older cables. Make sure you are using Cat5e cables, which are usually standard now.
Good Network + Properly Configured Hardware = Happy VoIP
Clearly there are plenty of things that can influence the quality of your VoIP calls, but the good news is that a lot of those things are in your control. With a good network and proper configuration of your hardware (and of course, Weave phones!), you will be on your way to a great experience with your VoIP phone service.
