In reply to a post by locutus:

A completely unscientific test on my smartphone with a sound meter app, shows the BT dial tone at 72dB and Hyperoptic at 91dB. That's with my phone on medium volume.

I'd say that's normal. Bear in mind that the dial tone on Hyperoptic is being generated by the router itself, rather than going through the "phole line". The router does indeed give a horrible, slightly high-pitched dial tone, but it's not the end of the world! I wouldn't compare the tones, as they're generated by completely different hardware. The volume during an actual phone call is comparable though.

I'm comparing the volume during a call. Of course I don't care if the dial tone is loud.

Call volume during a call is too loud on the lowest setting on my Hyperoptic line. Same hardware on BT is all ok.

I'd suggest trying a different router then

OK, I had a little play with the router (I have to say, seems like a good router, but with no info about it on the Net anywhere!).

If you are comfortable using a command line interface, then you can SSH into your router (telnet won't work, username: user pass: user) and then try:

> voice show

Look for:
TxGain : -1 dB
RxGain : 8 dB

These are my values - check if yours are different. You might want to test different values (I don't know min/max, you'll have to experiment), but if you're not sure about what you're doing please don't do anything, this could really mess it up. I'd contact Hyperoptic and get them to change it remotely.

P.S.: Goes without saying that I'm not responsible if anything bad happens to your router. Only SSH into your router if you're familiar with CLIs.

PS2: Please don't post any screen output on here, as it will probably contain your 'landline' auth details!

PS3: Just read your post about the router being severely restricted and Hyperoptic saying it doesn't support much. I agree, the web interface changed significantly after the first overnight update (sucks!). But you can do everything via the CLI and it's not very helpful if Hyperoptic just say you can't change anything. Although any ISP first line support would say that, really....

Edited by deleted (Sat 20-Oct-12 00:51:15)

Did you get any luck trying your router's CLI?

hi, sorry, been away for the night, only just got back.

Didn't even think of trying SSH, as I assumed it was locked down too, but can get on. Same settings as you, so will have a look round. I've also asked Hyperoptic for a new router, waiting for them to call back. I'm about to cancel my BT line, so want to get this sorted soon!

Thanks for your help btw.

Well, I changed the rxgain to 1 and it has lowered the dial tone volume (ok, I know, that's not important!) but need to make a call to test out but it's looking good so far.

Whilst I know my way around a Cisco and Juniper router, VOIP is something I never have to touch so not so sure on what these values represent, but will be working from home one day this week so will test how it goes on a few conference calls.

Thanks for your help again!

No problem, glad it worked!
TxGain controls the gain for the transmitter (measured in dB)
RxGain controls the gain for the receiver (again in dB)

It applies to everything going through the transmitter/receiver and will therefore also have an impact on your call volume.

You can hear an error message by keying *#43# (normally should give you the state of call waiting, but it doesn't seem to be set up on this network so you get a voice error message). That message is not loud at all on my phone.

I still need to post a review of Hyperoptic, but it's too late today Damn you, work!

In reply to a post by locutus:

Well, I changed the rxgain to 1 and it has lowered the dial tone volume (ok, I know, that's not important!) but need to make a call to test out but it's looking good so far.

Whilst I know my way around a Cisco and Juniper router, VOIP is something I never have to touch so not so sure on what these values represent, but will be working from home one day this week so will test how it goes on a few conference calls.

Thanks for your help again!

Worked from home one day this week, and phone calls are much better now. I can hear my headset beep to tell me it's on mute This also means I'm happier cancelling my BT line next month.

My router also seems to have had a software upgrade. Only change I can see if the DHCP page shows the lease time remaining. Don't think it did that before.