Using my cordless phone, which operates on a landline-type VOIP service whose device connects directly to one of the four Ethernet connections of my router, I called a credit-card service to check on a recent account balance. The call was answered by an automatic menu voice which started to ask for a log-in number, but before I could tell what it was asking, the audio went completely dead for a while, then came back to ask again... "I didn't quite get that... Please enter..." Audio again goes dead. After fiddling some more I got a live woman who also said my line kept dropping out and asked me to call again hoping for a better line. Through all of this I assumed the problem was at their end and that my landline was the most stable form of phone service in the universe. But what if the trouble is with my system?
At the same time I was making the phone call I was also re-streaming a radio program, which was streaming in live and being re-streamed through Zara and sent out over two servers, OGG and MP3. In the audio string were two Virtual Audio Cables and StereoTools as well as two Encoders, B.U.T.T. and Icecast and two instances of VLC doing conversions. .
With all this traffic being passed back and forth through the router maybe there's a bit of grid-lock with one symptom being the phone-line dropping in and out.
There's another situation where this same question arises, but I'll save that for later on so I don't put anyone asleep.
Your assumption of the problem makes sense. Too many things the router is doing at the same time. Have you checked the state of charge/battery in the cordless phone?
The battery of the cordless phone is fully charged.
Since starting this post I have stripped my setup to allow one online stream, no re-streaming, and as few things happening as possible. Next comes placing a phone call to see if it holds steady.
I am guessing that another variable that could influence performance is whether listeners are connected.
I think I knew all this stuff in the beginning, but unless things go wrong we tend not to fix anything.
As we have indicated, KDX no longer re-streams any program sources as a way of keeping computer traffic low with the intention of avoiding drop-outs to our VOIP landline service. We have yet to test the results of our change to evaluate the quality of landline calling, but in advance of that we have looked at the technical specifications of the program sources we were re-streaming. This data was collected by looking at the CODEC window on the VLC Media Player.
- Aljazeera News - AAC Format; Codec=ADTS; Stereo; SR= 48kHz; Bits per Sample= 32.
- Patch - VAC2 connecting Stereotool Output to 2nd Audio Hardware Output to C-Crane FM3 Transmitter; Stereo; SR=44.1kHz; Bits per Sample= 16.
- Radio Sputnik - Codec=MPEG Audio Layer V2 (mpga); SR=44.1kHz; BR=128kb/s.
- Free Talk Live - Mono; SR=22,050 Hz; BR= 32 kb/s.
The specs of incoming streams cannot be changed and must go through several conversions to match up with the settings of every stage of the audio chain and finally the encoders that drive the outgoing streams.
The fact that computers can do so many things all at once is astounding, and the lesson we learn is that some processing can get janky.
Don't know much of what you are referring to/describing here here as my technical language is limited with this stuff.
But yes because of the better processors in computers you can be doing several things at the same time, like when I was downloading all those hundreds of OTR dramas I could minimize the window and be on here or do something else while it did that. I guess a router isn't as capable.
A computer is better than your brain sometimes being able to do many things at the same time. Those 3 or 4 cores is like having more than one brain.
Results are in.
With no re-streaming and only the most basic KDX Icecast streaming activity, I called the bank using the cordless phone on a land-line. Like before, the phone call kept losing and re-making the connection. Next, I made the same call on the Android cellphone and it was as stable as a rock.
Therefore we learn that the landline service that we have is unreliable, and we are going to have it discontinued. We have graduated to an all cellphone operation.
@carl-blare I don't think it was the landline, it was more likely the cordless phone with signal interference. Before you scrap the land line try with a regular phone plugged into the wall jack.
@ Mark - There's an idea I hadn't thought of. So, thinking about it, using a phone with a cord would be a workable arrangement because I make most phone calls right from my desk. You may have saved the land line for KDX, Mark.