MARKHAM – With an ongoing and unprecedented shift in work from offices to homes, we could see some intermittent quality issues such as fast-busy signals or data interruptions on our telecom networks due to the strain of people working and streaming media in ways and at times they never have before, according to a release from independent carrier Iristel.
As the COVID-19 global coronavirus pandemic keeps more and more Canadians home, certain undiscovered network bottlenecks which were just fine when network usage was more typical, may result in calls not getting through and data speeds getting choked.
“The surge of in-home demand has impacted the quality some Canadians experience as telecom providers adapt networks not designed for this sudden change in network traffic patterns,” said Samer Bishay, Iristel’s president and CEO Iristel has a number of businesses including the administration of 7 million phone numbers and acting as an Internet backbone to providers of connected car, unified communications, ride-sharing and food-delivery services, among others.
Iristel’s release said there are a few simple things individual Canadian families can do to improve service into and out of their homes if they experiencing interruptions:
- Ensure that the SIP ALG (Session Initiation Protocol, Application Layer Gateway) function on home routers and modems is turned off or disabled. Most come from the factory turned off, but worth a check under system settings. It may also be worth a call to your Internet Service Provider to make sure they don’t have a SIP ALG function on your connection. You will need to escalate this request to their technical service (not customer service) to remove it. This will improve IP telephony, stability and functionality.
- Be aware that large downloads and video streaming may overload your own Internet connection and cause degradation of call quality. Minimize unnecessary downloads and video streaming and limit Wi-Fi and Internet usage in the home while you are engaged in important business calls and videoconferencing. It can really help performance.
- Think big picture of the Canadian telecom infrastructure and limit streaming, where possible. For example, maybe have the entire family watch the same Netflix or Prime Video movie, instead of streaming four devices at once. The added benefit is more family time, while at safe social distances.
“The overall Canadian telecom network is a patchwork of many companies both large and small. The sudden change in working locations has shifted both data and voice traffic and created choke points where they did not exist in the past,” reads the release.
“At Iristel, like other carriers, we’re experiencing greater volume which is causing some issues but our call volume does not exceed our internal network capacity,” Bishay says. “Still, the more common-sense tactics from users, the better for the overall Canadian telecom infrastructure.”
