Vodafone Wireless Home phone echo!!

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dalboy

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Wannabe Geek

#43539 20-Oct-2009 10:39

We have a family member who is on the Vodafone Wireless Home phone service. When you are talking to him there is a noticeable echo in the background. It is a wee bit annoying but he says he is used to it but people he talks to always mention it. Is there an easy fix?

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132 posts

Master Geek

#265247 20-Oct-2009 11:04

does he have a cordless phone?
If so i find that the base station for the cordless interferes with the white box.
if he trys to move the base and the box away from each other and on different levels he might find that he gets better call quality.

one guy told me that wraping his power adapter in tin foil worked a treat!

hope this helps

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scheduler

264 posts

Ultimate Geek

#265280 20-Oct-2009 12:11

Hi I have been running Home phone wireless with an el Cheapo corded phone and have noticed the echo. One of the things that I found out is that it can be the microphone in the phone picking up the noise of the earpiece. I have turned down the volume of earpeice and it seem to have made a difference. allthough for me it is early days to make a definate conclusion

Also it appears that some phones are more prevelant at this then others so trying another phone may be an option.

Hope this helps as i will be watching this thread to see if there is anything else I can learn

sbiddle

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#265389 20-Oct-2009 17:56

The first thing would be to try another phone.

There are a lot of cordless handsets that have poor side tone implimentations which results in echo. It's not necessarily noticeable when plugged into a normal analogue line but try something different such as an ATA or CTU and the audio problems are suddenly noticeable.

richms

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#265471 20-Oct-2009 22:06

When I had a brief attempt at using an at home box, it was crap for echo - tried a sipura ata's fxo port on it and that was terrible, tried a couple of cordless phones and again, bad echo for the other end.

The least problematic phone on it was a warehouse junky corded phone. If the cordless was having sound go out the speaker and back in the mic it would affect it on any line, not just the vodafone at home box.

Richard rich.ms

scottychch

14 posts

Geek

#272390 12-Nov-2009 13:43

I have vodafone home wireless and everyone who I have talked to have said the same thing. Have used a few cordless and corded phones on it and moved the phone base and vodafone box as far apart as possible but still the echo. Thinking of changing back to an normal land line in 2 months when my contract runs out....

jamesvini

132 posts

Master Geek

#272393 12-Nov-2009 13:49

Vodafone have a new box and phone system that is pretty good.
the call quality is much better than the old one.
and if you resign its free.

scottychch

14 posts

Geek

#272407 12-Nov-2009 14:22

Thanks, just called Vodafone, just need to go into an Vodafone to resign for a new box which comes with an Panasonic cordless phone and no echo or anything and its free!

cr250bromo

222 posts

Master Geek

#272411 12-Nov-2009 14:40

richms: If the cordless was having sound go out the speaker and back in the mic it would affect it on any line, not just the vodafone at home box.

A standard POTS line has very low latency so for a local call there is not enough delay for any signal that gets leaked back to be percieved as echo even though it is there.

Whereas on VoIP or cell networks there is a higher latancy so signals leaking accoustically (ie from the earpiece to the mouthpiece) can be sometimes be observed. Gateways that interconnect a VoIP network to a TDM network have significant DSP resource in them to detect and cancel this echo, but they can't always do it 100%.

Some light reading on echo in VoIP networks. I'm much more of a VoIP geek than a mobile geek but I'd assume similar principles would apply.

Geese

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#273408 16-Nov-2009 09:54

So Scottychch, how did you get on?

I have had the home phone wireless for 4 month, and I love it. I will be keeping the service for as long as VF offer it. I would have signed up on day 1 but I did not know of its existance until they got rid of the one at work and I asked why the number changed, and thats when I had the system explained to me.

I'm currently waiting for Digital Mobile (my local store) to call me back to see if resigning will mean I can get the new Panasonic system free. Does anyone know for sure if me resigning would get me to get the hardware free?

Otherwise I'll just sign up for 2, lol, if thats what it takes.

hairy1

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#273417 16-Nov-2009 10:30

Does anyone have any details on the Panasonic KX-TW501NZ? Is it 900 MHz 3g? Vodafone site doesn't go into any great detail.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

hairy1

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#273420 16-Nov-2009 10:32

Sorry, disregard. I found it here
2G only.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

pwner

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#273472 16-Nov-2009 12:17

portunus:
richms: If the cordless was having sound go out the speaker and back in the mic it would affect it on any line, not just the vodafone at home box.

A standard POTS line has very low latency so for a local call there is not enough delay for any signal that gets leaked back to be percieved as echo even though it is there.

Whereas on VoIP or cell networks there is a higher latancy so signals leaking accoustically (ie from the earpiece to the mouthpiece) can be sometimes be observed. Gateways that interconnect a VoIP network to a TDM network have significant DSP resource in them to detect and cancel this echo, but they can't always do it 100%.

Some light reading on echo in VoIP networks. I'm much more of a VoIP geek than a mobile geek but I'd assume similar principles would apply.

The @Home boxes don't use VoIP they just map the POTs line to a standard mobile call. i.e you are really using the home POTs phone as a handset to a mobile phone.

The echo usually comes from the fact that you are digitizing the POTs connection and like many IP PBX users will atest the most anonying thing is sorting out the echo issues when you try to interface the "Perfect" digital world with the "Imprefect" analouge world, often you get delays or imbalances in the wire pairs and that causing havoc when trying to digitize the signal; thus causing the echo and sound distortions you get.

Any posts are personal comments and not that of my employer

cr250bromo

222 posts

Master Geek

#273498 16-Nov-2009 13:45

I realise the Vodafone boxes don't use VoIP, I was making reference to the delay in transmission which allows echo to be observed, compared to a TDM call.

Echo is not caused by digitising POTS, if that were true then we would have been putting up with echo for at least 20+ years, not to mention the number of PABXs that are connected via ISDN. :)

richms

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#273569 16-Nov-2009 16:37

The echo is quite audible on a pstn to pstn call, just a lot shorter delay so its more like a reverb. - thats in addition to the local handset sidetone (which I hate).

There are plenty of crap phones around with no acoustic isolation between the mic and the chassis of the handset - they will all have that happen unless they have that even worse semi-duplex echo cancelling stuff going on.

Richard rich.ms

scottychch

14 posts

Geek

#274598 19-Nov-2009 22:14

Well went to digital mobile to get the new panasonic home phone wireless and was told that if I was going to resign before 11 months of my 12 month contract I would have to pay $88. Called vodafone home home cs ( who were very helpfull ) and they said get charged $88 only if I don't return the old home phone wireless unit ( and that digital mobile should have know that ). So they talked me thru getting the new panasonic phone from the vodafone online shop. Have the new phone now and its great, no echo at all and much clearer and dials much faster too. Over all if you did not know you would think was a normal land line.

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