Many companies have their Ooma devices installed behind a firewall. When that is the case, ensuring that your network is set up properly is a vital step towards getting the best quality for calls with Ooma Office. Ooma Office will work out of the box without network modifications for most users. If you are one of the few who faces issues, they can typically be fixed easily by accessing your router’s firewall settings. All the options that are discussed below can be accessed via your router or firewall’s web interface. You will need to consult the manufacturer’s documentation to find more information about where to find the settings that must be changed for the best network configuration for Ooma Office.

There are two primary reasons that you may experience voice quality issues with Ooma Office:

Type of connection

A robust network will have consistent, low-latency traffic with data speeds that are high enough to support Ooma Office traffic. Some networks, like satellite-based or cellular Internet networks, may not be optimal for services like Ooma Office that require reliable, low-latency packet transmission.

Network congestion or packet loss

Network congestion that causes varied latency or packet loss for voice packets can cause a problem called jitter. Most routers are designed to compensate for some jitter, but excessive jitter can result in poor voice quality. It can be caused by a misconfigured router, or the problem could be on your carrier or provider’s end.

Troubleshooting steps

You can begin troubleshooting poor voice quality on Ooma Office calls by going through the following steps in order:

• Perform an Ooma speed test by clicking here. If the speed test reveals that you are experiencing any of the following issues, you may need to contact your Internet service provider for further information:
  • Jitter over 30 ms
  • Packet loss over 1%
  • Network latency over 150 ms in each direction
• If the speed test in the previous troubleshooting step does not reveal any network issues, you may need to update your router’s firmware. Consult the manufacturer’s documentation.
• If your router is running the latest firmware, try turning off the SIP Application Layer Gateway (ALG) setting. Consult the manufacturer’s documentation for instructions on how to disable this setting.
• You may need to update your router’s Quality of Service (QoS) settings to ensure your Ooma Office hardware is not affected by QoS. Consult your router manufacturer’s documentation for information on viewing and/or adjusting QoS settings.
• Make sure that the appropriate ports and protocols for your hardware are open. You can learn more in this article.