10 Factors That Affect VoIP Call Quality

Issues of VoIP call quality keep coming up, but as far as I’m concerned, general quality has improved in the past two years. My experience is with soft VoIP, so I’m focusing on that. Soft VoIP IM clients have improved – some more than others. But it’s not always the software that’s at fault for a poor quality call. Here are ten possible factors that can affect VoIP calls made by soft phones:

1. Available RAM in your computer. My desktop has 1 Gb and dual processors; my laptop has 512 Mb and a single processor. No matter how many programs I shut down on the laptop, I still never have quite enough for optimum call quality. With my desktop, I do.
2. Hard disk fragmentation problems. If you’ve got a computer on which you regularly install and uninstall software without defragging your hard drive, you could potentially install your soft clients over several sectors. If this happens, you will most definitely reduce your call quality (for technical reasons I’d rather not get into here).
3. Your speaker/ headphones quality.
4. Microphone quality. However, I use a $1 mic (that regularly sells for $20) and get fairly good quality out of it).
5. Strength of your wireless signal. Here are ten tips for increasing your wireless signal strength.
6. Number of cable users in your neighbourhood. The more people online, the less your cable connection speed. While it’s not always suitable, if you are in a neighbourhood with lots of cable users, try making your VoIP calls at low-peak usage times. Bad times typically tend to be between 11 am – 1 pm, 4 pm – 7 pm, and often 10 pm – midnight, roughly.
7. Internet usage peaks. Network overload at MAE West and East, etc. Nothing you can do about this except try again.
8. The collective environment at the other end of  your call. If they are on a soft phone as well, and have some of the above problems, that’ll decrease the call qualty. If they are on a regular phone, then
9. Sabotage. You heard me. There are some VoIP experts who believe that VoIP call quality is deliberated sabotaged by broadband Internet service providers, particularly those owned by traditional telcos. I’m not saying it’s true, just that others believe it to be so.
10. The software you are using. If you are using an older text IM client, it may have VoIP features, but newer versions have advanced algorithms to produce better quality calls. Download the latest version. You can use Skype or one of several VoIP soft phone alternatives.