Packet Loss

Table of Contents:

Summary 

Causes

Test Networking Throughput

Networking Steps to Resolve

Summary 

Packet loss occurs when one or more packets of data traveling across a computer network fail to reach their destination. Packet loss is either caused by errors in data transmission, typically across wireless networks, or by severe network congestion.

Causes

 Packet loss almost exclusively stems from poor network issues, as mentioned above. Typical causes occur from high network congestion, sub-par networking hardware, and firewalls dropping/blocking certain ports/IPs.

Steps to Resolve Packet Loss

 Test Networking Throughput

Purpose: Throughput essentially is your average network performance including during peak usage. We will do this through a ping test. We want to understand if your packet loss is being caused by network congestion due to overloaded network hardware. One way to evaluate this without Enterprise IT software is to run a ping test on your network to determine if you have high latency (measured in ms) due to network congestion.

1. Run this networking diagnostic
   
   Open Diagnostic
   
   
2. We want to look at the latency or ping values in ms. Follow next steps based on your ping test results.
   • 0-85ms latency:
     • standard expected range. Please continue to the Networking Steps to Resolve
   • 86ms-150ms average ping
     • acceptable range but may experience some packet loss. Please continue to Networking Steps to Resolve.
   • 151-300ms average ping
     • You will experience call quality issues and your networking hardware likely is the cause of your packet loss. We recommend continuing to the next step but you may want to consult your IT professional for network hardware suggestions
   • 300ms+ average ping
     • You may experience call drops and the packet loss messages you see likely stem from poor networking hardware. You could continue to the next step, but should also seek to improve your network hardware quality.

Networking Steps to Resolve

 If you have administrative access to your router, then please also do the following:

1. Disable SIP ALG

• SIP Application Layer Gateway automatically assigns packets and in some cases will mark valid packets as invalid causing packet loss.

1. Add Firewall Permissions aka Whitelist the Kixie IPs
• https://support.kixie.com/hc/en-us/articles/222788988-Network-and-Firewall-Setup-for-Kixie
• We highly recommend contacting your ISP or IT admin mentioning that you're experiencing high packet loss. They should provide some troubleshooting steps.
2. Purchase adequate networking hardware to support your internet usage. We recommend contact your IT admin or