VoIP Troubleshooting Guide: Fix Connection Issues Yourself

The problem might be obvious and simple to fix, and have nothing to do with your ISP.

Fess up. We have all suffered through at least one moment of embarrassment caused by throwing somebody under the bus because of our certainty they were the cause of a problem. Then you realize they had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was actually your fault. All signs pointed to them, though, which is what you mumbled to yourself while you finished that big slice of humble pie.

If your organization has a VoIP telephone system, the blame for operational or quality problems often lands squarely on the shoulders of your ISP. After all, when are they not having some kind of outage, right?

Wrong.

Your ISP may make an easy scapegoat for a number of reasons, and to be fair, they could be to blame. But it is not always their fault. Follow these common VoIP connection troubleshooting steps the next time your phones act up, unless you really have a hankering for another piece of that pie.

The usual suspects

Internet service providers used to be the most common problem. But billions of dollars worth of improvements to the global infrastructure of the Internet have made it robust and far more reliable. The regularly heard gripe of "Here we go again, our Internet connection is down" has become the exception rather than the rule.

Today's more likely VoIP connection suspects are much closer to home. In fact, one of them could be that Ethernet cable just a few feet away from your desk. Yeah, the one that looks like it is plugged in all the way, but is not.

Start with your cables

Start your VoIP troubleshooting by checking your cables. Wait a minute. If that sounds familiar, it is because "Check to make sure your cables are all firmly connected" is invariably the first thing an ISP tech support person recommends when you call with a problem.

Here is the thing. No, they do not think you are an idiot. They want to hear that you have already checked all the cables. That is so obvious. What a relief if that is the problem.

That is why a thorough check of all your physical cable connections should always be the first task in your troubleshooting routine. You want to rule out the obvious. Somebody might have rolled a desk chair over a CAT5 cable running to the router. Now it is crimped and damaged. Those little plastic clips that secure their connections break off pretty easily.

It is in your best interest to uncover something as simple and obvious to fix as a damaged cable or poor connection. You can do that yourself.

Relax, it is just the router

Routers have multiplied like rabbits all over modern offices, particularly if a VoIP platform powers your office communications.

Thankfully, router proliferation has been outpaced by technical advancements. Routers are crucial to the successful directed flow of data, and they have evolved into sleek low-profile boxes that pull data in through physical cables and push it back out wirelessly. They usually do not need any help from you. Any troubleshooting you might do to a router will probably be done with a computer that talks to it.

And suddenly we are channeling the ISP tech support person again. Can you see the green light? Does the router have power? It really is that simple. Again, an unplugged or nonfunctioning router is easy to detect.

If the connections are clear and the router has power, the next troubleshooting step is to reset it.

Check your QoS settings

Obvious and simple solutions become less common at this point, but it is still not time to send an SOS to your ISP. You are not yet done exonerating your routers. The routers for VoIP are called on for some heavy-duty work. They are equipped with features to help organizations focus more bandwidth resources on VoIP.

The brand of routers your organization uses determines how easy this troubleshooting will be for you. It may be as simple as a visit to the management dashboard on your computer to ensure that all actions related to VoIP are set to the highest priority.

The takeaway is that you, and not your ISP, are responsible for these settings. Be sure your router Quality of Service settings are not the cause of the problem. If you are scratching your head because this feature or these settings cannot be found, it might be time to have your IT department re-check router port forwarding settings. These protocols give the green light to VoIP data.

It also might be time for your organization to invest in dual-band routers, which are better suited to handle the big data throughput needs of VoIP. If you are weighing new hardware, our guide to the best VoIP phones for small businesses and enterprises walks through what to look for.

Where are my packets?

VoIP platforms do not work well if something is obstructing the bandwidth necessary to digitize voice. Pieces, or "packets," of the data are losing their place in line because something has slowed them down. Reduced sound quality and choppy or even dropped calls are clear indications of packet loss.

It is not always the case, but most often the cause of packet loss is network congestion. People in your organization are consuming more network resources than what is required to optimally run your VoIP services. Turn to a third-party testing tool for answers. Many are free and available online.

What matters here is having a neutral entity weigh in on who is guilty of causing this packet loss. Is it your inadequate Wi-Fi system? Or is your ISP truly betraying you?

Informed finger pointing

Work with the appropriate people in your organization to establish these troubleshooting guidelines. Deploy them as soon as you encounter performance problems with your VoIP system. They will allow you to dispense with the "let us check your end first" delays your ISP will throw at you, if you have to call them at all.

You may, on the other hand, discover that your ISP truly is not up to the task. That does not mean you have to start over. We can help. CallSprout runs your phones on a cloud business phone system built for a reliable, redundant network so your calls keep flowing even when your primary connection has a bad day.

With our complete set of voice features, your VoIP phone lines stay humming, and you get tools that the phone companies often charge extra for, including auto-attendant, voicemail to email, and call forwarding. You can also add an AI Voice Agent that answers, transcribes, and routes calls automatically, so a connection hiccup never means a missed customer.

Switching to a cloud phone system can also cut your bill, since VoIP often costs around 30 percent less than legacy service. Want to go deeper on the basics first? Browse our VoIP articles or see CallSprout pricing to find out exactly how much you can save.