Obviously everyone wants their calls to be the very best quality possible. The way you can achieve this is implementing Quality of Service (QoS) on your network. CircleLoop is an app-based service and works differently to traditional VoIP, so your setup needs to be slightly different. If you'd first like to know more about Quality of Service then this video will explain what it is and why it's important. Configuring QoS on your network router ensures that your voice data is prioritised over other network traffic in your business. This is vital to ensure that other activity happening on your network doesn't impact call quality and stability. When your network isn't stable this can cause information to get lost in transit which in turn means gaps in conversations, reduced call quality and even call drops.
Recommended Network Hardware
In terms of hardware, we recommend using the Draytek Vigor 2862 Series routers in conjunction with CircleLoop. If you're using Draytek 2862 hardware then this article details specific setup instructions. If you've already got a router which supports QoS then read on for general guidance.
Quality of Service Settings
Please refer to your router's instruction manual when applying the following settings and remember to always backup your current settings before making any changes. If you're not familiar with network management then please take advise from somebody who understands your network before applying any changes.
Our applications use WebRTC processes and therefore signalling for calls is performed over standard web ports (80 and 443). Unlike traditional VoIP solutions which often use SIP for signalling, there's no additional ports which typically need to be opened on your network.
IP Addresses and UDP Ports
The most reliable way to ensure CircleLoop call audio traffic is prioritised within your local network is configure QoS settings on your router based on CircleLoop's range of IP addresses.
Our apps connect using UDP to send and receive media - this can be on any port. You can set prioritisation rules in your QoS settings based on UDP packets on any ports, to and from the IP addresses listed below.
Media Server IP Addresses
54.154.50.2354.76.185.211
54.76.6.101
52.50.191.52
52.209.36.53
34.248.129.185
52.209.37.201
52.210.9.151
34.249.157.106
63.33.163.126
34.241.86.203
176.34.250.117
18.200.44.111
54.76.92.210
52.208.138.176
52.19.160.95
52.212.193.60
18.200.155.38
34.246.205.236
52.213.245.254
54.74.79.113
18.133.20.155
13.41.250.10
3.11.93.125
35.176.115.55
13.41.235.160
3.11.240.167
Network Packet Prioritisation
In addition to IP & UDP Port rules, QoS rules can also be added based on DSCP markers. All our call media UDP packets get tagged with prioritisation data. We use a DSCP tag with code 46 for Expedited Forwarding to identify these packets. Configure QoS settings on your router to ensure that Expedited Forwarding settings are honoured. It may be necessary to apply the same rules to any access points that you intend to connect to, in addition to the primary router.
Configure your network speed
In order for the router to know when it's necessary to prioritise network traffic, it's often necessary to set maximum downstream/inbound and upstream/outbound throughput based on your fibre connection.
To do this you need to measure the actual speed of your connection. It's best to carry out these tests outside of normal office working hours when your network isn't being used by anybody else. Log into speedtest.net and launch 3 tests, each after the other and note down the downstream and upstream speeds from each test. Looking at your results, choose the lowest upstream and downstream result from the three tests.
With these settings you should be able to set the the WAN inbound or downstream bandwidth and WAN outbound or upstream bandwidth parameters according to your results.
If you've got any further questions around QoS or required network settings then please get in touch with our support team.