Keynote: VoIP audio "merely tolerable"

Doug Mohney — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:58:54 -0500

Releasing its sixth study on VoIP service providers in three years, Keynote Competitive Research (KCR) says audio quality hasn't improved since the last go-round in April 2007. Reliability, however, is improving.

KCR, the industry analysis group of Keynote Systems, measured a mix of nine voice services -- landline service provider AT&T; VoIP providers AT&T CallVantage, Lingo, Packet8, EarthLink, trueVoice, Verizon's VoiceWing and Vonage; and cable Comcast Digital Voice and Time Warner Digital Phone services.

Findings of the study indicate that digital providers are outpacing the competition with audio quality, an interesting finding where VoIP audio is deemed as "merely tolerable" and a shift from the previous study where landline providers prevailed. In the published rankings, Comcast Digital Voice scored 901 performance points, followed by Verizon's VoiceWing service at 609 points and AT&T's land line service at 506 points.

Only one of the VoIP providers in the study failed to provide dial done 99.9 percent of the time or better and there's also one VoIP provider out there that requires two seconds more to set up a call than anyone else.

Eight out of the nine providers have improved their call completion rates since the previous study.

For reliability, AT&T landline line service ranks at number 1 with 996 points, but Time Warner Digital Phone pulled 926 points, followed by Verizon's VoiceWing service at 872 points.

For more:
- Visit Keynote's website for the press release.

Keynote Kicks VoIP Reliability and Clarity

Doug Mohney — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:17:36 -0400

Keynote Systems has released its latest VoIP testing report comparing VoIP and PacketCable services against wireline providers. The study finds "tolerable" audio delays on the alternative services.

All the service providers (AT&T CallVantage, EarthLink trueVoice, Lingo, Packet8, Verizon VoiceWing, Vonage, and Vonics Digital on the VoIP side; Time Warner Digital Phone and Comcast Digital Voice with PacketCable) were compared to AT&T's local wireline service from calls made from residential locations in New York and San Francisco.

Results indicate consumers are more likely to experience "merely tolerable" rather than completely satisfactory audio delays on VoIP calls. One VoIP provider had no calls with MOS scores of 4.0 or better; one experienced audio delays of more than 150 ms for every call placed--a serious no-no for call quality since 150 ms is the threshold for good calls and one VoIP provider required six seconds more than other VoIP providers to connect calls after dialing. In addition, there were large quality gaps between VoIP providers on unmanaged networks and other service providers.

For more:
- Read Keynote's VoIP Telephony Quality release

Related articles:
Keynote's VoIP Quality Report Circa 2006
VoIP quality on the upswing in 2007

keynote systems

Keynote: VoIP audio "merely tolerable"

Keynote Kicks VoIP Reliability and Clarity