Audio quality issues can significantly impact business communications and customer satisfaction. This comprehensive guide will help you identify, diagnose, and resolve common audio problems in your VoIP system. Whether you're experiencing echo, choppy audio, static, or complete audio loss, this guide provides step-by-step solutions.
Before diving into complex troubleshooting, always start with the basics: check your internet connection, restart your device, and verify your audio settings. These simple steps resolve 60% of audio issues.
Understanding the different types of audio problems helps you diagnose issues faster:
Echo occurs when you hear your own voice repeated during a call. This is one of the most common and disruptive audio issues.
High speaker volume can cause sound to leak back into the microphone.
Solution:
Most VoIP systems have built-in echo cancellation features.
Settings → Audio → Advanced → Enable Echo CancellationAlso enable Noise Suppression and Automatic Gain Control if available.
Hard surfaces cause sound reflections that can create echo. Add soft materials (carpets, curtains, acoustic panels) to reduce echo in conference rooms.
Choppy, robotic, or fragmented audio is typically caused by network issues such as packet loss, jitter, or insufficient bandwidth.
Use built-in diagnostic tools to check your network quality:
Admin Portal → Diagnostics → Network Test → Run VoIP Quality CheckQoS prioritizes VoIP traffic over other internet activities:
Static, crackling, or background noise can be caused by electrical interference, hardware problems, or environmental factors.
One-way audio means one party can hear the other, but not vice versa. This is typically a firewall or NAT configuration issue.
One-way audio is almost always caused by firewall or router settings blocking RTP (media) traffic.
Required Firewall Ports:
SIP Application Layer Gateway (ALG) often causes more problems than it solves:
Router Settings → Advanced → SIP ALG → DisableForward VoIP traffic to your PBX/device:
| Service | Protocol | Port Range |
|---|---|---|
| SIP | UDP | 5060-5061 |
| RTP | UDP | 10000-20000 |
Ensure your VoIP device is configured for your NAT environment:
If call volume is consistently low, check these settings:
Use these tools to diagnose network-related audio issues:
Most VoIP systems include diagnostic tools:
Admin Portal → Tools → Network Analyzer → Run TestThis will test: latency, jitter, packet loss, bandwidth, and MOS score.
MOS (Mean Opinion Score) measures call quality on a scale of 1-5. Aim for 4.0 or higher.
Test Latency (Ping):
ping -n 50 [your-voip-server]Trace Network Path:
tracert [your-voip-server]Separate VoIP traffic on its own VLAN for improved quality and security. Requires managed switches.
Enterprise solution that manages VoIP traffic at network perimeter, handling NAT traversal, security, and quality monitoring.
Multi-Protocol Label Switching provides guaranteed bandwidth and low latency for VoIP traffic across WAN connections.
Use multiple ISPs with automatic failover to ensure call quality even if primary connection degrades.
Our technical support team is available 24/7 to help diagnose and resolve complex audio quality problems.