Friday, December 13, 2013

What Tools Can You Use to Test VoIP

One of the first things to do if you’re thinking about transitioning to VoIP is to test your network to see if it is suitable for VoIP. There are several free tools online to help you do this. You will only have to invest your time. This ensures that you can make the most of VoIP once you decide to switch.

These VoIP testing tools may also be useful to you even after you’ve installed VoIP. When you have it set up to constantly test your VoIP service, you will get a good picture of your service’s performance. This way, you can anticipate issues and even have your service provider fix them before they affect your call quality.

The first kind of VoIP testing tool is the network analyzer. This may also be referred to as the packet sniffer. What this does is it intercepts voice traffic to do an RFC analysis. All this is in the background, of course. You will not experience any disruption in your service. As it tests your network stability, you will get an idea about your network service’s suitability for VoIP. You can decide to switch to a provider that works better with VoIP. The problem with this VoIP test tool is that it is not specific to VoIP and particular factors that affect its quality.

The better call quality testing option is the VoIP Analyzer. This where services like VoIP Spear are categorized under.  Like the network analyzer, VoIP analyzers test your network’s suitability for VoIP. But, unlike simple network analyzers, these test for specific factors that affect how you enjoy your VoIP service, such a latency, jitter and packet loss. For these tools, single endpoint testing usually is offered for free.


The last two kinds of VoIP testing tools are suited for big VoIP users, such as offices, or VoIP service providers. The way these tools monitor call quality is more intrusive, such that the system needs to be powerful enough so it does not affect user experience. These are the VoIP Probes and VoIP Quality Testers. Probes are implemented at selected points of the network, where traffic is analyzed. Quality testers send test file through the network. The idea is to compare corrupted files against the original.