AUTHOR: Scott G DATE: 11:26:00 PM ----- BODY:

Yankees win! QOS for VoIP: Mission Impossible..

I did the unthinkable tonight and fell asleep on the couch during the Yankees/Red Sox game. It was 2-0 when I fell asleep and the same score when I woke up. The game was on ESPN, but blacked out because the crappy Red Sox station was carrying the game. So that's why I fell asleep, those damn homer play by play guys. They get beat badly 11-3 last night and come back tonight saying "Well, the Red Sox did force a lot of long at-bats last night.." What kind of nonsense fact is that? It's a pitiful effort to put their sorry team in a good light. They tried a lot of that and I guess I got tired of it, literally. I woke up, turned on Yankees radio, muted the TV, and the Yankees came back and won 4-2 tonight. Currently we have a wireless connection set up to share the DSL between our computer and my Mom's downstairs. For some reason it disconnects a lot on her computer despite an excellent wireless signal strength. I'm trying to remedy this issue and assure that while talking on my VoIP phone using the computer doesn't interfere. This is called QOS (Quality of Service). Basically I just want the VoIP traffic to have the highest possible priority no matter what I'm doing. This way if I'm downloading a large file it will slow down a bit to let the call go through clearly. There are a few options to try and achieve some of this. To control how the wireless router works there's software inside called firmware. One company has found a way to alter the firmware to allow for QOS, the reason I got this router in the first place. That company is called Sveasoft, and a lot of people swear by their products. The version boosts signal strength and may possibly fix my Mom's issues, but the QOS doesn't work like I feel it should. In order to give the phone high priority you need to set the router to limit your bandwidth permanently, even when not on a call. This is utterly ridiculous and I'm not doing it. There has to be another way. The best way I've found to do QOS is a beta firmware by the manufacturer, Linksys. It allows for flawless QOS, but doesn't solve the issue for my Mom. I have no idea what I'll do, but I've got to figure something out. Until tomorrow.. --------