Quality of Service and Business VoIP

What is Quality of Service?

QoS or Quality of Service is a term often used to help explain the prioritization of a certain type of network traffic over another to improve the related services quality. Network or Internet traffic consists of a verity of transmission protocols and service protocols. For example, the most commonly used is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), and less commonly used User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Most VoIP traffic uses UDP to transfer it’s service protocols due to the low latency transmission provided by UDP. Businesses using VoIP can be very sensitive to latency or delay in their telephone conversations and UDP provides the ability to move audio at close to wireline speeds. Until a global standard for Internet Quality of Service is implemented such as the PlaNetS QoS project that was proposed for European funding circa 2005, business VoIP users will need to implement QoS on their private networks.

How to Ensure QoS for VoIP?

For Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, on a private network, this means prioritizing two types of traffic: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Real Time Protocol (RTP). A VoIP telephone call requires several steps such as dialing, ringing, answering, or any other dispositions. The negotiation of these steps that handle the lifecycle of a telephone call is SIP. The second part of a telephone call is when a call is initiated and the other party has answered. RTP is used to quickly move two audio channels, one for transmitting and one for receiving. RTP is one of the most important protocols to prioritize using QoS methods as it can be very noticeable when a delay is introduced into a conversation. If a “Hello” is heard 1-2 seconds after it is spoken and a response is not heard fast enough you can have two parties repeating and talking over each other.

Business Communications

Business communications can be critical and delay or quality issues are unacceptable to most business operators. VoiceOnyx understands that we cannot depend on Internet Service Providers (ISP) to prioritize traffic as they have their own traffic to consider. Instead, a solution at the edge of a businesses network before all of their traffic is handed off to their ISP is required. VoiceOnyx has developed a proprietary network router that ensures the highest classification of VoIP service to provide “Landline” type quality. Secure remote access to a QoS router also provides key performance indicators on packet loss, latency, and jitter, which can all affect VoIP.

The combination of a proactive QoS router and detailed monitoring tools allows a business to maintain the highest possible quality of service for their business communications.