How to improve VOIP quality over HSPA

[gabe]

Hi, I've been using mobile VOIP on an Exetel WM-A HSPA plan for a week or so, both via my Nokia N80's built-in SIP client and via Fring. I have good WCDMA reception but can't get good VOIP quality.

When using the built-in Nokia client I get drop-outs on every call. With Fring, it sounds like it's using a lower bitrate than the native Nokia client and drop-outs don't seem to be a problem, but I get a delay of several seconds instead.

Can anyone suggest anything I could change to improve this, in terms of phone settings (I have installed Nokia's SIP VOIP settings add-on), Fring settings, or different software or hardware?

cheers,
Gabe

[Mandella]

I have travelled a fair bit with my hspa connection on a netbook using the g.729 codec (711 generally seems unusable) on a softfone and a Bluetooth earpiece. I found that the call quality varies greatly with location and time of day including delays.
It has never been as good as from home on adsl (which is just perfect) but very usable from many locations. Signal strength seems to be just a part of it; I had good quality calls on three bars and bad ones on full signal - it's just a mix.

[vk3xem]

I am using a Nokia E66 and my experience is not to attempt a VoIP call over HSPA whilst mobile, it rarely works. Secondly always make sure you have a very good signal strength or don't even bother trying.

I think VoIP quality has a lot to do with network congestion, it is well known that Optus have over streatched their HSPA capabilities during rollout and until they increase that capacity on existing sites it will be a long while before this drastically improves.

I am however saving money using VoiP over HSPA but unfortunately it isn't something I would recommend for mobile users at this stage unless they are very, very tech savy.