Network – Broadband Capacity and Quality Test Tool | AT&T Office@Hand
Article #3080

Broadband Capacity Test Tool and Quality Test Tool

Office@Hand recommends a high speed DSL, cable or fiber optic connection with a minimum upload speed of at least 90kbps (128kbps for Polycom phones) per line. A stable Internet connection is also needed to ensure good voice quality.

Follow the steps below to test your connection’s capacity and quality

Test Your Connection’s Capacity
Test Your Connection’s Quality

Test Your Connection’s Capacity

This will assess line capacity or how many calls your connection can handle.

1. Go to http://officeathand.att.com/capacity.html.
2. Visualware BCS is required to run the test. Click the link Visualware BCS to open the download page.
3. On the Visualware BCS page, click on the Download link for Windows, Mac, or Linux. You may click on the Installation Help beside the link for assistance on installing the tool.
4. Set the following options then click on Start Test to begin the capacity test.
   Advanced Options:
   Download bandwidth starting point (Mbps) – Choose how much download bandwidth the test will begin with. Try to choose a number that is close to what you believe you have subscribed to from your ISP.
   Upload bandwidth starting point (Mbps) – Choose how much upload bandwidth the test will begin with. Try to choose a number that is close to what you believe you have subscribed to from your ISP.
5. The test will take several minutes. Once completed, it will show the total number of phone connections your ISP can support simultaneously.

Test Your Connection’s Quality

This will assess the call quality or the voice clarity of calls on your connection.

1. Go to http://officeathand.att.com/qos.html.
2. Visualware BCS is required to run the test. Click the link Visualware BCS to open the download page.
3. On the Visualware BCS page, Click on the Download link for Windows, Mac, or Linux. You may click on the Installation Help beside the link for assistance on installing the tool.
4. Number of simultaneous calls – Set the number of simultaneous calls this connection will need to support. If this connection will be used for other Internet traffic as well, run the test while there is a normal to high amount of this other traffic present. This will more accurately simulate a real deployment of our phones on this connection. You may select 1-20 simultaneous calls on your test, then click Start Test to begin the quality test.
5. The test will take a few minutes. Once completed, an analysis of the audio/call-quality performance will be presented in Results Summary.

See Also:
Knowledge Article 2846: Tips for improving the quality of VoIP calls

Key Words: broadband capacity tests, quality test tool, bandwidth, Internet connection, DSL, digital subscriber line, tools, bandwidth capacity, Internet speed, capacity, Internet service, computer network, network, quality test

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