How To Test Voip Speed

Before transitioning your old PSTN system to VoIP

, you need to do an analysis to find out whether or not your existing infrastructure is up to the task. Among other things, this means that you need to do a complete audit of your bandwidth and your Internet usage across a certain time frame to figure out if you're ready to implement VoIP. Though ISPs give you an "all you can eat" plan when it comes to bandwidth, they don't guarantee the highest possible speeds and the match between your usage and your pipe width is what will determine your VoIP adoption.

Another interesting aspect is that you might also need to figure out your VoIP Bandwidth which might be different from your regular data speed. Strictly speaking this is a very contentious issue coming under the banner of net neutrality, but all ISPs manage their networks. VoIP doesn't use nearly as much bandwidth as some other applications, but if your entire organization is switching to VoIP, the numbers might add up and your ISP can have a problem with that.

So testing your VoIP speed is critical before you start and will prevent a lot of headaches in the future.

How to test your VoIP speeds

The first thing to do is to make a cold test of your excess bandwidth. You probably already know how much you're getting, but a simple download and upload test when there's no load on the network will give you a baseline Internet speed. Next, you need to carry out a detailed analysis of your traffic throughout the day for a few days at least to understand the excess bandwidth you have at different times. Installing speed logs on your server will do the job and there are many free programs that will give you pretty graphs to understand the trend.

The next step is to contact your VoIP provider and ask the for an estimate of the bandwidth needed. This varies from provider to provider as they use different protocols and codecs to deliver the service. Give the number of users and based on their experience they should be able to provide an estimate. Match this with your logs and see how they compare - do you have a lot of excess bandwidth, or will you need to upgrade?

Based on what you find you might decide to use a Virtual LAN with its dedicated bandwidth to handle VoIP traffic or you may decide that you have plenty of surplus. Either way, the first step is to audit your speeds.

by: Andrew Wiggin

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