I have 2 PBXact servers running in HA mode interfaced to the outside world via a SIP trunk. Endpoints are a mix of Sangoma phones (305, 400, 505, 705) and Cisco 7960 phones flashed to SIP. We have 100 meg synchronous fiber and 100x10 cable internet tied through a Meraki MX64 edge device for service.
Recently, I’ve been getting some reports of static in calls and spontaneous 1-way audio in the middle of a call. I know for a fact that part of it is the little crackle of static whenever the animation moves on the Sangoma phones with a display - waiting on new firmware to become available in order to remedy this. I was able to find a recording of one such call and could hear both ends of the conversation on the recording no problem. It’s very intermittent though, happening only a handful of times in a given day. The SIP provider said to check with the ISP, whom I am currently waiting to hear back from.
In the meantime, I was wondering if there are any diagnostics, network statistics, etc available in PBXact that might possibly shed any light on what’s going on? I’ve poked around and have found the CDRs and call recordings, but that’s about all - nothing that would show if network congestion were detected at the time, etc.
Are you a 100% sure it’s static or is it something sounding like static. Static is hard to get over IP. If there is static then it would be where there are copper wires, etc. So the handset of the phone, poorly seated jacks, worn out handset cords.
Static is not an Asterisk/FreePBX issue. It’s a hardware/wiring issue.
Honestly, I’ve no idea what it sounds like @BlazeStudios - I’ve never experienced it on my phone and it’s not in the recordings of the calls. We just put in the phones about a month ago, so it’d be hard to be worn anything.
One of the Sangoma phones I bought from you had a bad connection to the microphone on the inside of the handset though & yesterday the speaker went out on the same phone, so maybe I should be questioning the quality of the Sangoma phones more than I am. (Unfortunately, things were delayed so long putting the system in place that the warranty ran out before they were ever out of the boxes… think I’m just going to swap that one with a 7960.)
To be perfectly honest, I think it may be people looking for something to gripe about because the phones are different than they were, but don’t have anything other than a gut feeling to back this up with and no way to prove/disprove the theory. Is there nothing in the system that records network stats of calls?
As I said, actual static is the result of something physical. Wires exposed, touching, poorly connected or even wet/damp. Just because it’s new doesn’t mean something didn’t happen it to it in transit/shipping/storage. Or it just got past inspection.
If it’s not appearing in call recordings then it’s not at the PBX level, it’s at the phone level.
Weird - the sales person I dealt with at Sangoma is also named ‘Tom Ray’… I assumed you were he. Instead, there must be 2 of you! (I learned when my credit union intermingled my credit report with others that there are 4 of me in town… THAT was fun getting straightened out!)
I’m wondering if I shouldn’t pick up a couple IP phones and try them in place of the Sangoma brand ones for testing. (I’ve got a whole box full of 7960s from our old phone system upstairs, but really don’t want to give the operators such a basic phone.) Any suggestions as to what would be an appropriate brand/model? They currently have s500 phones.
I’ve been trying to find some sort of pattern to this & believe I’ve found a very important clue - the only people experiencing this type of thing are using Sangoma s500 phones! (Can’t believe I missed that initially.)
IIRC, there was a problem with some older S500 firmware that manifested screen changes with chatter on the line. As I recall, it’s been fixed in newer firmware versions.
I’d open a support ticket with Sangoma is upgrading the S500 firmware doesn’t solve the problem.
Thanks for the info on the firmware @cynjut I just upgraded one of them to the latest version released on 9/20, which is version .72 Going to monitor to see if it fixes the issue and/or causes any other oddities before rolling it out to all of them.
(I learned when my credit union intermingled my credit report with others that there are 4 of me in town… THAT was fun getting straightened out!)