Voip > Help > Residential > Troubleshooting > Troubleshooting > Q&A
Help! I don’t have a dial tone
If your phone calls sound choppy, broken, or you’re having other voice quality issues like delays, echo, or crackling/static noises, your network might not be optimized for voip.
Before you do anything else, make sure you don’t have bandwidth hogs strangling your network. These include file sharing or other peer-to-peer applications, playing graphic-heavy online games, uploading large files with FTP programs, and sending email with big attachment sizes. Any time you’re using that bandwidth for something other than voice, you risk degrading the sound quality of your calls. Try pausing high-bandwidth activities and see if it solves your problem.
If you’ve dropped the bandwidth usage during calls but think there’s still room for improvement, you can:
- Keep your voip internet phone adapter (the special router you got when you signed up for voip.com’s service) well ventilated so it doesn’t overheat and make sure it’s positioned at least 3 feet away from any electronic device that might cause interference.
- Take a moment and reboot your adapter, modem and computer. It may seem silly but this can solve a multitude of problems.
- If you’re using multiple routers or other networking equipment, try plugging your voip adapter directly into the broadband modem. If this solves the sound issue, you might have a problem with one of your other pieces of equipment. Gradually add the equipment back into your setup until you’ve identified the one that’s causing the problem. Then you can contact the manufacturer for their troubleshooting recommendations.
Other Troubleshooting Help Topics
- My calls are going directly to voicemail!
- My Internet keeps dropping when my computer is plugged directly to the router (SPA2102).
- Help! I don’t have a dial tone
- My phone light is not on. What should I do?
- I can make outgoing calls, but I have no audio on incoming calls!
- How do I reboot my Phone Adapter?
- I have to reset my phone adapter. Will my phone work when it’s done?
- How to reset the Linksys SPA2102 by phone?
