VoIP QOS tagging on Chorus UFB

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nbroad

320 posts

Ultimate Geek

#181011 29-Sep-2015 11:45

Hi,

This is a question around QoS tagging my VoIP, using World Exchange over Chorus UFB, ISP is Vodafone so it could really sit in any number of forums :-).

I have a Mikrotik into the ONT on VLAN 10 DHCP, all working perfectly.

I created a mangle rule to identify outbound VoIP packets and tag them with 802.1p = 5.
(I used 5 as that is what is specified in https://www.chorus.co.nz/file/48702/Bitstream_2_Acelerate_Service_Description-June-2014-Final.pdf)

I ran a packet capture during a VoIP call and confirmed my outgoing RTP packets are being tagged correctly - hopefully this means I am going through the 2.5 Mbps high priority CIR.

I then took a look at the inbound packets from World Exchange and noticed they do not have any priority or DSCP tag. I'm wondering if I should be seeing a priority tag on these inbound packets through to me, or if they are lost somewhere through the network? Maybe World Exchange does not tag packets, or they are being stripped somewhere in the middle or maybe even at the ONT?

An outbound RTP packet:

802.1Q Virtual LAN, PRI: 5, CFI: 0, ID: 10
101. .... .... .... = Priority: Video, < 100ms latency and jitter (5)
1011 10.. = Differentiated Services Codepoint: Expedited Forwarding (0x2e)

An inbound RTP packet from World Exchange:

802.1Q Virtual LAN, PRI: 0, CFI: 0, ID: 10
000. .... .... .... = Priority: Best Effort (default) (0)
0000 00.. = Differentiated Services Codepoint: Default (0x00)

Hoping some VoIP, QoS, UFB gurus can shed some light on this for me.

Regards,
Nigel

Sounddude

I fix stuff!
1928 posts

Uber Geek

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#1396511 29-Sep-2015 11:52

I would say that World Exchange are not tagging your VoIP packets in the downstream direction. Are you using a World Exchange VoIP service or 3rd party like 2talk?

ISP's generally will only tag their VoIP packets with dot1p5.

nbroad

320 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396512 29-Sep-2015 11:54

Using World Exchange Open VFX

Cheers

Sounddude

I fix stuff!
1928 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

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Lifetime subscriber

#1396516 29-Sep-2015 12:01

nbroad: Using World Exchange Open VFX

Cheers

Cool, Best to reach out to WxC for comment.

speed

293 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396531 29-Sep-2015 12:09

The QoS you are referring to is at layer II, ie ethernet. It is only possible for your RSP to tag using this sort of QoS. In your example that would be Vodafone.

Some ISPs do this for their own services but few if any would tag ingress traffic from other peering or transit routes and deliver those with QoS.

You could query WXC to see if they use UFB's QoS capabilities to prioritise their VoIP servers and if they do then you could consider a change of RSP to leverage this feature. However with your current arrangement I don't believe you'll be able to achieve your goal :(

Pete

nbroad

320 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396542 29-Sep-2015 12:19

Yeah thanks for that. I don't see any Layer 3 DSCP tag either. Maybe if World Exchange packets had that tag (maybe they already do, but it's stripped), Vodafone could tag that as high priority layer 2.
World Exchange I believe are part of Vodafone now so it would be nice if we could have end to end QoS for our VoIP.

Cheers

speed

293 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396552 29-Sep-2015 12:27

I think they still using existing routes between themselves although I could be wrong. You could mtr to see where the route takes.

I gather it is not uncommon for QoS tags to be stripped when routing via internet exchanges, although I have no idea if that is the current policy on APE or AKL-IK, nor whether your traffic to their servers currently takes those routes (but again, mtr could tell you).

It's a fair point about them being in a better position to enable QoS between themselves compared to two general market ISPs but I think you'll find they have little interest in building it in for free when they can continue to charge businesses a premium for a WAN service for their voice instead. Maybe I'm just a cynic!

Best of luck & I do hope you get a solution, but I think it'll involve either a change of UFB RSP (ie ISP changes to WXC) or a change of ITSP (to VF, if they offer a SIP service).

I can say that 2talk do have good QoS options on their links (both xDSL and UFB) and a little birdy told me they're not far away from nationwide UFB availability, but I can appreciate a change that big may not be what you want to do just to achieve good QoS for your VoIP :)

Pete

nbroad

320 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396564 29-Sep-2015 12:43

Yeah I don't really want to jump ISP's considering I'm less than one week into my new UFB contract.
It's not an absolute necessity to have the downstream QoS working... I do have 100 Mbps down now and don't plan on maxing that out all the time, It's just because I'm a network geek I like to 'optimise' things!
Maybe I'll look into VF providing a SIP account - would be good if someone from Vodafone or WxC could jump in here :-)

MTR:

root@pabx:~ $ mtr --report 182.154.16.150
HOST: pabx.localnet Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. mt-rb750gl.localnet 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.0
2. 121-75-51-254.dyn.vf.net.nz 0.0% 10 1.6 2.4 0.9 4.5 1.2
3. bvi-400.bgnzwtc02.wlg.vf.net 0.0% 10 3.6 4.5 3.0 6.6 1.2
4. bvi-188.bgnzwtc02.wlg.vf.net 0.0% 10 3.3 4.9 3.2 6.8 1.3
5. 203.97.78.57 0.0% 10 12.1 13.7 11.8 15.7 1.5
6. ge-2-0-0-906.ie2.telstraclea 0.0% 10 11.9 13.9 11.9 16.3 1.6
7. g1-0-0-906.u12.telstraclear. 0.0% 10 11.9 14.5 11.9 20.3 2.4
8. wxc-dom.akcr10.global-gatewa 0.0% 10 15.9 14.3 12.1 15.9 1.3
9. ip-58-28-17-9.wxnz.net 0.0% 10 15.9 14.4 12.2 16.1 1.4
10. ip-182-154-16-150.wxnz.net 0.0% 10 16.1 14.7 12.9 16.2 1.3

regards,
Nigel

Sharesies

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speed

293 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396567 29-Sep-2015 12:54

Oh dear :(

Your packets are taking the worst possible route for VoIP packets to be taking when it comes to NZ ISP inter-connectedness. The trace shows you're going up through TC (now also VF so makes sense) but then through GG to get to WXC, which means you're crossing what have in the past been congested links during peak times (TC<->GG).

Bugger!

I hope for your sake that VF get WXCs traffic in-house in the long term, but given the usual industry inertia I won't be holding my breath. WXC may even have other reasons for not wanting to use TC domestic (who knows).

nbroad

320 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1396571 29-Sep-2015 13:00

Hmmm that sucks... I had actually noticed a little bit of night time latency increase on my smokeping targets. Not noticeable from a usability standpoint, but just visible on graphs.
Just a little spike between 8pm and 10pm. I put it down to the Netflix effect and everyone kicking off their movies at that time.

Cheers