SatSig topic:

Voip on VSAT

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Mar 15^th, 2006 at 5:55pm

Can I use VSAT conection for Voip? How can I do it?

May 31^st, 2006 at 5:30pm

That's a pretty broad question. Predictably, the answer is "it depends." It depends on what quality you are willing to accept, what VoIP service you are using, what voice codec is being used, what bandwidth you have available, and how congested your shared VSAT service is.

If you are looking for Ma Bell quality using your regular phone with a VoIP service like Vonage or SunRocket, then you will likely be disappointed. It may work well when the VSAT network is lightly loaded, but when things get busy you can expect problems.

If you are willing to make a few compromises, then I suggest you try using Skype. You will be tied to your computer to make and receive calls, but it has a good chance of working because it is very bandwidth-efficient. You would not want to consider this as a replacement for your landline phone, but it will allow you to make cheap calls.

Jun 2^nd, 2006 at 1:22am

It does depend a lot on your satellite carrier. Some are better than other with latency and ping times. So far the worst VoIP I have used and heard is on Direcway service. The best, well on our service.
The key is the being able to choose your voice codec on whatever IP phone or VoIP device your using. We use G.729 @ 20K in both directions and G.723 @ 8K in both directions on our sat services.
Most if not all "consumer" based VoIP like Vonage and the rest do not allow for codec changes to work on sat. They are set to use 128K in both directions. you need to buy "open" hardware you can configure yourself. We also do not recommend using soft phones but they work in a pinch. Most SIP soft phones do come free with G.729 or G.723 codecs so you will have to buy a full product.