Agent I2050 problems

[ttuckwell]

We use I2050 soft phones for remote agents working from home. They are acquired in CCM 6.0 and calls are recorded in Call Parrot. They VPN into the network to access their telephone service and use Citrix to use the other coporate applications. We are experiencing consistant problems with dropped calls and/or poor audio quallity. Does anyone have any suggestions or an idea what could be wrong?

Has anyone had any success using another technology to provide agents working from home with the ability to take calls, be recorded and handled by CCM.

Thanks.

 

[captaingadget]

The problem with working over broadband via the internet is that there is no quality of service mechanism so any activity on the users broadband, file transfer email or any other application that the user is running will affect the voice quality through latency and jitter. Most broadband connections only have an upload speed of 256k despite generous download speeds. There's not really much you can do about it as far as I know.

 

[mattfx]

What zone are these soft phones in? Did you create it's own zone so you can control the codec? Is it currently uncompressed?

 

[mattb025]

We have just begun a similar deploy with just a hand full of agents (5)

1 of our agents had issues with voice quality. Turns out that there was another PC at the agent’s home that was accessing the internet and taking up the pipe.

It is now standard policy that if an agent works from home and has any performance issues, the first thing we have them do is turn off all other computers in the house regardless if someone is logged into them or not.

Also keep in mind in the day of wireless routers, that many have wireless setup without any security, so it may be possible that a neighbor is also using there pipe.

 

[81Cadmin]

Captaingadget is right about the broadband, agents over broadband will be exposed to periods of quality issues. What codec are you using (try creating a zone only for your softphone agents and use the BB G729ab codec).

Another option I've used in the past is to dedicate a pc to the agent for i2050 use only. I've found by isolating the app to it's own PC you avoid running into resourcing issues on the PC. Standard business apps tend to be resource hogs and the i2050 can't compete. The requirements of the i2050 aren't huge so dedicating an old PII laptop or desktop solely for i2050 use will definately improve performance overall. Agents can manage that PC using remote desktop with or without a monitor.

The i2050 app really doesn't have a huge pc requirement, if you isolate the app to it's own PC you'll likely see some improvements.

Also I never recommend standard DSL for home agents. I tend to see more packet-loss, jitter and latency compared to cable providers.

Lastly, i2050 over WiFi should be a 'no-no' for home agents. It may be fine for other business units and departments but not call centre. As well they should not be sharing this connection with multiple PC's (especially if it is paid by the company).

If you tighten the requirements for i2050 home use you will definately see some improvements.