Voip + down/uploading = choppy communication

Question

Other than lowering my down/upload rate manually (Bittorrents), I have not found a solution to choppy communication when making a Voip call. My understanding is that a router with QoS would solve this. My hopes were that Apple would implement this on their new Airport Extreme, but I can not see from the specs that it has done so. Is there another solution to this problem?

Answer 1

I am having a similar issue, and please bear with me, I am a relatively new Mac user and after reading every ding dong post in these discussions, I understand about 1/8 of it... I have a MacBook with DSL service and Vonage VoIP. My cable goes from the wall into my DSL bridge. A cable then connects that to my Linksys WRTP54G Wireless Router / Phone Adapter. A phone cord goes out of one of the phone ports into my phone I use for Vonage.
For a couple of months, everything was hunky dory. Then, mysteriously, one day, I began to have this problem: when I try to access the internet while I'm on my Vonage phone, I hear choppiness, usually sufficient enough to hamper all communication. It may have been after a recent software update, and I'm sorry that I don't remember... It is my understanding that the people I'm talking to DON'T hear this intermittant interruption. I have bugged my DSL providers continuously and after a gazillion ping tests and so forth and so on, they report no problems in their service.
I'm aware that VoIP requires a certain amount of bandwidth, and Vonage declares that to be around 90 or so. My DSL has upload / download speeds of approximately 350-380 / 280-320. It seems as if my computer is giving the use of the Internet priority over my VoIP all of a sudden for no apparent reason at all except to drive me freakin' crazy. I use my Vonage line as a business phone, so I'm frantically trying to figure out what's going on. I need to be able to use the internet while I'm on the phone.
I have tried to troubleshoot this by making the following changes:
+changing my Vonage bandwidth allocation from their website
+using a cable instead of Airport to access the Internet
+aggravating my DSL providers to the point of no return
+doing the whole "turn everything off, turn it all back on again in order" thing
+randomly changing Ethernet settings which I completely know nothing about in my 'Network' -> 'Built-in Ethernet' -> speed and reducing the MPU size all the way down to the minimum
+using a non-cordless phone
+using a 5.8 ghz cordless phone
+using a 2.4 ghz cordless phone
+praying
+cussing
I have no idea what QoS is, so could someone help me figure out if that can help me? Alternatively, is there a way to tell my router to give priority to my VoIP instead of internet browsing?
Again, I apologize if any of this reveals my ignorance, and please, speak in the simplest of terms if you have the chance to respond. I read some of these discussion answers, and I don't think I'm as smart as the rest of you... (obviously, it's taken me 12 years of computer use to switch to Mac).
Much Much Much Obliged and biting my nails until someone responds...,
myvoices
MacBook   Mac OS X (10.4.9)