Network Speed Test

[tjcbs]

I am looking for a good easy to read test to demonstrate to a customer how the phone system is effecting his bandwidth. He has a techie employee that is concerned because they refused to run cable so we have the computers piggy backed off the phones and she swears the whole network is running slow but I can't find any proof of that. Thanks for the help.

 

[Eric121508]

Are they prioritizing Voice packets on their network? If they are prioritizing the Voice packets and they have their computers plugged into the data port on the phone it could cause the computers to be slow because when they are on the phone and on the computer there are Voice and Data packets hitting the same port on the network. So every time a Voice and a Data packet get to the switch at the sane time the switch will que the data packet and take the Voice packet first every time and in extreme conditions this can cause the computers to lag in that configuration. As far as a way to prove that you would have to use a managed switch and setup port mirroring to mirror the data port that is going into that phone. You would then use a Sniffer such as WireShark to analize the flow of voice and data packets through that port. Theres a lot more to it then what I just wrote but that gives you the gist of it.

Let me know if that helps any,

Eric

 

[tjcbs]

yeah it makes sense for me. I was just hoping there might be a program someone has found to show "x" amount of bandwidth is used by voice and "y" is used for data but if that doesn't exist yet then he will either have to pay for new lines to pay for new lines or be satisfied with my knowledge. Thanks for the info.

 

[gwebster]

Also have to watch out if there data switches and PC are GigE capable and they are NOT using a GigE IP Phone (such as 1120E/1140E).

 

[tjcbs]

They have a gigE card on the server but no switch or other card in the rest of the building. That is a good point because I am seeing more companies going to gigE and the 1200's wont work the same.