As companies ditch their landline phones for VoIP, it’s usually not long before the random VoIP call problems begin and their IT/Ops teams find themselves getting “the complaints.”
You know the ones:
“I was in the middle of a negotiation and the call dropped!”
“It was horrible, we all sounded like we were eating bees!”
“We never used to have these problems with our old system!”
Like a good team player, you call the VoIP provider and they tell you it’s a problem with your ISP. So you call your ISP and… you guessed it… they suggest you call your VoIP provider. It’s not that they’re trying to be unhelpful. The reality is, neither of them has the visibility they need to diagnose the issue. Which leaves you right where you started, dealing with a lot of frustrated users.
At Bigleaf, we solve these exact problems for thousands of companies. Let’s walk through some of the most common VoIP call problems. You’ll learn:
- How to diagnose the VoIP call issues
- What’s causing them
- How to fix them forever
What your users are hearing
VoIP calls generally suffer from one of four VoIP call problems:
Dropped calls are just what they sound like. Line goes dead, and usually, one person keeps on talking for 5 minutes not knowing that the other caller isn’t on the line.
Choppy calls are when whole or partial words get cut off mid-sentence. The call sounds rough and uneven. This makes conversation difficult and can be a real pain on sensitive or contentious calls.
Robotic calls are when the person’s voice sound’s glitchy and lacks a natural human quality. This makes it hard to understand what’s being said and, on a personal note, sounds really unpleasant.
Laggy calls are when there is a long delay from the sender to the receiver, making it seem like the receiver is taking a long time to respond. This usually ends with both parties talking over each other.
The problem isn’t your VoIP system, it’s your internet
Believe it or not, your internet connection, even the really fancy one that you pay a fortune for, is consistently down or slow. Even when circuits are up, they don’t always perform as expected. According to Bigleaf data, internet connections are down or unusable for an average of 604 hours a year caused by outages and unpredictable issues like packet loss, jitter, and lag. Any of those could cause VoIP call quality issues.
Most companies don’t realize this because traditional internet applications are designed to handle internet blips and drops gracefully. Broadband connections are like roads that are full of potholes, speed bumps and cracks. Conventional applications like websites and file downloads are like Cadillacs that glide over those imperfections to the point where you may not even know they exist. VoIP and UCaaS, on the other hand, are like Ferraris. They operate at the edge of performance and even a little bump can show up as a call quality issue.
In other words, you’re having VoIP call problems because broadband internet connections like cable and DSL aren’t able to handle the performance needs of VoIP on their own. So, about fix?
The solution is network optimization, but how?
To make video and VoIP calls work flawlessly, you need a layer of intelligence that can automatically detect those pesky internet outages and problems that cause unusable uptime, and make real-time adjustments to ensure that they don’t affect your calls.
The good news is that there is network optimization technology that can help. This technology uses software to control traffic over one or more internet connections, intelligently prioritizing and routing your network traffic to ensure optimal performance and uninterrupted VoIP and video calls.
However, there is also bad news. There are several solutions to choose from. Most are designed for site-to-site networking, making it difficult to determine which one will work best to fix all your VoIP and video call issues.
Here are a few questions you can ask to make sure you’re choosing the right solution for your VoIP system:
Can the solution detect changes in your internet connection performance in real-time?
This is critical because the quality and throughput of your internet connection are continually changing. Without real-time detection and adaptation during an ongoing call, it’s nearly impossible to guarantee uninterrupted VoIP and video performance.
Does the solution automatically adjust QoS policies to changes in your internet connection conditions in real-time?
Without this capability, you’ll have to set your QoS to a static speed and policy. If it’s set for your peak internet speed, your VoIP and video calls will suffer when performance drops. If you set it for the low end of your internet performance, other traffic will be blocked even when there’s plenty of bandwidth to handle it.
Will the solution provide failover and optimization for any VoIP or video call provider without manual configuration or policies?
If not, you may end up with an expensive and ultimately ineffective deployment that fails at the last minute.
Will your non-VoIP and non-video traffic get the same core benefits?
If your users get a great VoIP and video call experience but a poor experience with other key applications, they’ll end up frustrated and upset. Consistency is key.
We designed Bigleaf specifically for the needs of cloud-based technologies like VoIP, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. We can address all of those issues and end your VoIP and video call problems for good. What’s more, you’ll get those same benefits for all of your cloud-based applications (Office 365, CRM, ERP, etc.) as well as the visibility you need to right-size your connections. Our technology plugs right into your existing firewalls and doesn’t require any changes to your security that could open you up to data breaches and compliance issues.
End your VoIP and video call problems now
If you’re ready to put an end to your VoIP and video call woes, there’s no reason to wait. Bigleaf can typically deploy routers to any number of locations within days. So request a quote today, and you’ll be quickly up and running with enterprise-grade connections over broadband internet.
No more dropped calls. No more choppy calls. No more complaints.
