CounterPath eyeBeam 1.11 User Guide for Windows - Manual (Page 43)

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Audio contains bothersome background noise
Significant background noise can be due to the level of the silence threshold. Have the other party
adjust their silence threshold, which they can do by running the Tuning Wizard covered in
Section 2.7.
Audio sounds choppy in a conference
Poor conference audio may be caused by upload bandwidth limitations. For example, some sites
have 1 Mbps download bandwidth, but only 128 kbps upload bandwidth. Under such conditions,
try multiple hosts for the conference, or have all participants disconnect and switch to a lesser
bandwidth audio compression codec such as G.729.
Poor sound
Poor or scratchy sound is a symptom of a problem with network connections, or a faulty network
card. The following issues could contribute to poor sound quality:
• There may be packet loss on the IP network. Check the network performance, latency, and
throughput. A 200-millisecond round trip latency as determined from a ping should deliver
good audio quality.
• Older network devices may have performance problems. Make sure to use the latest driver.
There is an echo there is an echo
The following tips may be useful for reducing echo heard during the conversation:
• Try using a headset with plugged into the sound card. Another suggestion is to use a
USB-enabled headset, which bypasses system sounds by acting as its own sound device.
• If using a boom type headset, note that some boom headsets can create feedback between the
boom microphone and the headset earpiece.
• The microphone balance is not muted in the playback section of Windows audio controls.
When configuring sound, examine the volume control setting.
• Echo will occur if the user’s microphone can pick up sounds coming from the speakers used
for the softphone call (when not using an integrated headset).
• The microphone level might be too high or the amplifier might be turned on in the generic
Windows audio controls.