Okay, I figured out my issue with the MTA: BitTorrent. When I had the MTA in my network, it was sharing bandwidth with my PC which was running a Torrent client. When I put the MTA out in front of my Linksys router, it had priority and the SIP packets made their way upstream. Figuring this out, I brought the MTA back into my network and performed a test.

I called my brother in San Jose and we had a normal sounding conversation. Then I turned on µTorrent and immediately Sean noticed the clipping issue. I then paused the client and it went back to normal. So, it was µTorrent stealing just enough bandwidth that caused my issue.

According to DSLReports, I’m doing about 300+ Kbps up when nothing is running on my PC. When I turn µTorrent on, I’m getting about 202Kbps. So it looks like SIP wants about 300 to do well, which is pretty much all my bandwidth.

I confirmed these findings via Test Your VoIP performing the same on and off test on µTorrent. With it running, I get “Worse then a Cell Phone” and with it off I get “Like Your Next Door”.

I know Comcast claims my max up is 384 Kbps but I’ve never believed that. What did strike me odd is DSLReports showed East Coast Comcast users getting as much as 7Mbps UP! Dude, what plan is that?! Now that’s what I need!

So I guess if I have like 500Kpbs, I could do “regular” PC work and VoIP with no issue. But I’m not going to get that with my current cable. Maybe when we move to our “land” and I get that fixed wireless, that might happen. If memory serves me right, it’s 1.5Mbps up. That should be more then enough.

So I’m happy at this point that I figured out the issue. I now can just unplug it and take it with me. I read some forums with people doing this in hotels and only having issue with having to first login via a PC to accept the user agreement to open the access up. I remember this and know that only works for 24 hours. So I guess I’ll either need to bring a router along or just do the RJ-45 swap every morning.

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