Imagine walking into a doctor's office and saying, “Doctor, I feel terrible.” When the doctor asks you what, specifically, is wrong, you just repeat “I don't know. I feel terrible,” leaving the doctor to wonder whether you feel pain in your foot, pressure in your sinuses of one of several thousand symptoms in between.
Troubleshooting VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) problems is a little like this, writes Interactive Intelligence's Abi Chandra in a new video blog. During installations or post-sales support sessions, Chandra says he is often called into help fix voice problems, only to be told by the client that the audio “sounds crappy.” While “crappy” may seem descriptive to a customer, it's hardly enough for an engineer to determine WHY the audio sounds bad.
Just like the human body can experience many symptoms that can indicate a variety of problems, audio in a VoIP installation can sound “bad” in a number of different ways, all of which can help indicate the root of the problem and help get it fixed as quickly as possible.
To demonstrate, Chandra has enlisted the help of Lady GaGa to demonstrates normal sound versus a variety of problems to help companies better understand what may lie at the core of their sound problems. During the two-plus minute demonstration, Chandra uses a Lady GaGa song (appropriately called “Telephone”) to create an audio example of normal versus acoustic echo, normal versus hybrid echo, normal versus g.729 across WAN, normal versus multi-tandem distortion, normal versus VAD clipping (voice activity detection), normal versus progressive packet loss, and normal versus complete loss of signal (which as you can imagine, sounds like a lot of nothing).
In the mood to learn something useful about VoIP troubleshooting? As Chandra says, “crank up the volume of your speakers/headsets (high quality speakers or headphones recommended), lights …camera….ACTION.” (Click here to skip right to the video).
And you thought you weren't going to learn anything today...