Test Your Data Connection Before Switching to Hosted VoIP

So you've decided to reap the advantages of a hosted VoIP phone system.

Maybe it's the scalability or the built-in disaster recovery or the feature rich system that is constantly innovating and improving your business communication standards.

Regardless the reason, one of the most critical steps you need to take before switching to an on-site or hosted VoIP phone system is to test your data connection for 3 key elements: speed, latency and quality.

We discuss the 3 ways to test your data connection:

3 Ways to Test Your Data Connection:

Testing Data Speed 

Testing data speed – specifically, upload speed and download speed – lets you verify whether your current bandwidth will support your desired number of phone lines. These speeds are measured in Mbps (megabits per second). 

While systems vary, generally speaking an upload speed of 5 Mbps is required to support about 15 lines, while 30 Mbps would likely support over 100. Download speeds are almost always higher than upload speeds, and so do not impact the bandwidth for the purposes of testing capacity. However, in rare cases where the upload speed is slower than the download speed, then the former will represent the bandwidth – and therefore govern how many phone lines the system can effectively support. 

Testing Latency 

A “ping” test is performed to check for latency, which represents how long it takes for a computer to communicate with a server – or in VoIP system terms, it is the duration it takes for the sender’s audio to be transmitted to the receiver. This number is measured in ms (milliseconds). 

Generally speaking, a ping duration of 100ms or less is sufficient to support a VoIP phone system and will not trigger any detectable delays in communication. 

Testing Quality of Service (QOS) 

Rather than testing speed, QOS tests fluctuations in download speeds to see if there is significant variance. The goal is to verify whether the current bandwidth can effectively handle traffic from multiple sources at the same time. If not, then certain data packets will be in essence “held back” to let others go through. 

Discovering QOS involves dividing the minimum download speed detected during a download, by the maximum speed detected. This results in a percentage between 0 and 100, with 0 being terrible (and unworkable) and 100 being ideal. For example, a score of 20% means that the QOS is poor since there is a substantial speed fluctuation. However, a score of 90% is strong since there is very little fluctuation between the maximum and minimum speed. 

The Bottom Line 

If you wish, you can conduct the above tests by accessing Visualware’s MyConnection Server at http://myspeed.visualware.com/index.php. 

However, be assured that if you partner with Votacall, our experts will perform rigorous, robust and extremely precise on-site bandwidth testing prior to implementing your VoIP system. We’ll advise you accordingly to ensure that your system works flawlessly, and you start reaping all of the rewards and advantages immediately. 

To learn more, contact us today and take advantage of your free consultation.