I have UV VoIP and mine is great.  I don't have any suggestions for you.

could be as simple as a bad connector put on the end of one of the cat5 wires or a bad connection at one of the jacks, does it happen on every phone in your house, or just one?

 

Try plugging a phone directly into the back of the RG and see if the problem is still there, if not, it's something in your home phone wiring...

Don't feel bad. I had my system installed in Late October. 2phone lines, TV's + Internet. From the beginning we had noise on the line, at one point completely lost service on one line. Noise gets so bad we have to hang up and call back. I have now spent at least 3 hours on the phone with Uverse, had 3 technicians try different things and no one can figure out the problem. We were with AT & T Before this and never had a problem. None of the techs seem to be able to find a solution.

The problem begins 5 to 10 minutes into a phone call, then progrssively gets louder.

Not sure if the savings are worth the grief. I am very patient, and if they loose me they will loose many many clients until they fix this problem.

I am experiencing the same problem currently, though not quiet as bad it sounds like.  According the AT&T, it is a current issue having to do with how U-verse voice is being allocated in their bandwidth stream.  Especially if you have all three services.  The tech say's its an engineering issue.  That there is some bleed through in the bandwidth that is creating the "static".  So who knows how long this will take for them to find a solution.

Your phone is doing the same as mine. According to the tech that was at my house, there is a line failure between my house and the main uverse box.The faliure develops after 5 to 10 minutes in a call.

The noise you are hearing is most likely the actual data that is injected on top of the voice communications.

Normally under ideal conditions, you should not be hearing this noise.

Filters in the NIU outside isolate your voice path to the data, but there sometimes becomes an issue when the pair is not perfectly balanced, you get subharmonics produced and it appears in the VF (Voice Frequency) range. Thus it is passed on through the filter.

I had this happen to me once before, and the fix was a pair change.

The reason why your VOIP call does not hear it is because the transmissions are not in the VF range, but rather pure 100% data.

Once you switch to AT&T U-Verse Voice (once it is available) then your voice quality will actually be even better and will no longer be subject to the noise on the lines.

In fact, you line will essentially become a 100% data line only and there will no longer be the need to even have the filter in line. This could also help out the data side in supporting higher data rates (presumably).

I spent countless hours with Uverse voice and the issue never went away.  I switched back to Vonage -- problem solved.

Just thought I would give an update.  After 7 U-verse support techs, 4 Line techs, and the local service manager has been out, I still have static on my line.  I have had VoiP for years with the competition, with no problems.  They have replaced the RG, the pairs, checked and replaced what could be replaced between the node and my house.  Checked the house lines.  Still have static.  So, I am having to switch to a regular land line with AT&T, we will see if that does the trick. Very frustrating to have to end up paying more for "equivalent" service.  Though I must say they really get you with those extra fee's and services.  I will be paying aprox $15-$20 more a month now. 

Just my 2 cents.  I posted in another discussion regarding my intermitent static problem.  I had the techs out for the same thing.  They explained to me the the line entering in to my house is merely a data line and won't pick up any static till it enters the gateway and then gets converted to a signal.  Therefore any static would be from inside the house.  I switched my phones out from a Uniden 5.8 Ghz to a Panasonic Dect 6.0 system and have not encountered the problem again.

While I understand, that some phones work better than others. This is not the case here, even with the hard line phones connected directly to the RG, I still get static, even when the techs hook up their own phones to the lines, they still get static.  The lines in the home have all been checked and cleared that they are not the cause of this problem.  It is especially baffling that the competitors equipment seems to work just fine, for years without any problems, but U-Verse voice is a throw back to the neo-lithic age of communication.  Thus I am going to the dinosaur's and seeing if a Hard Line will "solve" the problem, because I do like the TV and Internet service, which is working just fine.

I wonder where they start getting static. If the took the RG back to the vrad if they still get static. If so the static may be in the data stream coming from the network. Keep us posted hope they find the problem. Thanks for the updates.

FWIW..  I have UVerse triple play and when I first had UVerse voice I also had some static.  Turns out as I had just switched I accidentally had my old 2Wire DSL gateway plugged in, and I forgot all about the DSL line filter on my alarm system.  Took all DSL filters and modem out of the loop and now it's crystal clear.  My house is only 6 years old so all the wiring is pretty fresh though.

 

I'm using 4 year old 2.4 Ghz Vtech phones, no issues whatsoever.

My wife and I had U-verse Voice and Internet installed several weeks ago, and, while the internet service has been excellent, we have persistent static on the voice line, even when we plug a phone directly into the RG.  As far as we can tell, the static is not heard on the other end of the line, but every once in a while the static will become so bad on our side of the line that it's difficult to continue a conversation.  We've had multiple technicians out; they have all confirmed the static and been unable to make it disappear, despite replacing cables both inside and outside the house, investigating grounding issues, swapping phones, etc.

 

Upon reflection, one thing that strikes me is that none of the technicians has considered the possibility that the RG itself is defective.  Aren't the VoIP analog-to-digital conversions done inside the RG?  If so, given that static is present on a phone plugged directly into the RG and that our internet service works well (consistently 10 Mbps down, 1.5 Mbps up), isn't the problem very likely to be within the RG?

 

Thanks in advance for help, suggestions, and explanations.

 

Todd 

You have a good question.  Try calling tier 2 ts and see if they will send someone out with another rg to test and see if the static problem persists.  If it doesn't then it is clearly an rg problem. If not then you may want to look into trying a new phone.

Yesterday afternoon we had an excellent technician replace the RG and do yet further work on the line into our house.  The static is still present, perhaps at a lower level, but we'll have to spend more time using the phone to see whether the work cured the rare cases in which the static becomes distractingly loud.

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ToddS wrote:

Yesterday afternoon we had an excellent technician replace the RG and do yet further work on the line into our house.  The static is still present, perhaps at a lower level, but we'll have to spend more time using the phone to see whether the work cured the rare cases in which the static becomes distractingly loud.

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If another tech comes out to check your service see if they will check your connection at the VRAD.  The problem could be there. imo

Have you tried plugging different phones in back of the RG?  I know you said you had but wasn't sure if it was just one or others.  If you are getting static on different phones than it could be the rg or could be a line problem...

We've tried two phones plugged directly into the RG, a Panasonic DECT 6.0 cordless phone and an old-fashioned wired phone.  In addition, the various techs have heard the static on their own handsets.

 

The latest work replacing the RG and further massaging the lines didn't end up curing the problem, but -- and I should have thought of this sooner -- we haven't heard the static since moving the RG from right next to my Mac Pro to ~4 ft away.  I'll report back in a few days whether the problem really was as simple as interference my computer.

 

Added at 7:10 pm PDT:

 

Thinking about the idea of interference from my computer a little bit more makes me realize that it's not a very plausible explanation after all because my wife has reported static even when my computer is asleep. 

The desktop computer is asleep, not fully turned off.

 

I haven't noticed any correlation with internet download activity.  We certainly hear the static when no downloads are occurring.

 

If we pick up the phone and press just one number, then we do hear static, even on a phone that is plugged directly into the RG.  You make a good point that until the number is completely dialed, nothing has gone out to the AT&T network.

 

The RG is plugged into the Belkin battery backup device that was provided by AT&T.

 

The bottom line at the moment is that the worst of the static hasn't reappeared since I moved the RG away from the desktop.  Since the desktop is often asleep, this improvement doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess there isn't much to do now other than wait and see.  In the meantime, I really appreciate all of the thoughtful comments that I've received. 

Yes, there's a fair amount of stuff plugged in close to the RG:  my desktop computer and LCD screen, an Airport Extreme, and a clock radio.  Everything is sharing one power strip.  In addition, there are dimmable halogen lights in the ceiling.

 

So far today, my wife, who works from home, hasn't reported any problems with static. 

Ok.  If that static comes back try moving the RG away from all that.  Normally I would have it setup next to my office but because of where the line comes in from the NID, coax lines and my punch block.  I have my RG in the basement.

Sounds like they are trying.  Just some added info.  I had similar issues to what you are describing when I added UVoice to my service.  They actually went through 3 different RGs before static was gone.  It was an RG issue.

 

I am sure the RGs are not cheap but for most issues I have noticed that there is reluctance to switch these out.  In all cases, not just my UVoice, swapping the RG fixed everything.  I also think that since swapping the RG is not as easy as unplugging one and plugging in another to check (similar to moving a STB to another TV to check issues) this adds to the reluctance.

 

Hang in there and hopefully ATT will get it working to your satisfaction.  Good Luck!

I just had my uverse installed last week.  I also have static on the line.  I called tech support who sent out a prem tech to come take a look at my lines.  He listed to the line that ran to the RG and it had static on it already, and the tech told my that since it was occuring before the RG it couldn't possibly be the wiring inside the house.  He also informed me that it was a known issue in the area and that it was due to the cables coming out of the CO. I was told that I could get a normal landline, or just use a cell phone.  Since I'm not one that talks on the phone a whole lot this is not a deal breaker and I will just live with it as it is.  The static is annoying, but I can tolerate it.

Sorry you have to tolerate the static in your phone service.  But welcome to Uverse.

Since a week has gone by since the AT&T technician replaced my RG and I then moved my RG a few feet away from my computer, I thought I'd write an update.  Knock on wood, the static problem has been licked.  Even my wife, who has a lot more sensitive ears than I do, hasn't complained (much) about the static.  However, I've realized that sometimes when she was complaining about the sound quality, she wasn't distinguishing between static and an echo.  Indeed there is an occasional problem with an echo or a "hollow" sound, which I gather is a much more common problem with VoIP than static.  Does anyone have a pointer to how to interpret the "Voice - External Line Stats" in the RG Management and Diagnostic Console?  I've noticed that the max round-trip time is often over 60 ms, which seems like it might be enough to cause a faint echo.

 

Lately I've been tempted to try Ooma for comparison with U-voice.  Ooma's price and features appear to be excellent, and I'd love to compare the sound quality between Ooma and U-voice.

 

Todd 

I have had all 3 services since February and am on my 3rd RG. The first had unuseable 802.11g signal, the second blew up on the second phone line, and the 3rd is now up and running. With everyone of the RGs we had the same issue with static building the longer the call goes.  It is worse on line 1 than line 2 and all the techs that come out tell me is it is a known issue with 2-Wire.  Never had static when I was using ATT copper lines.

 

The RG has a 6 hour UPS that is powered directly from the wall socket and doesn't share a power strip.  The only electronics near it is a Mac Mini with 17" LCD screen, which is about 2 feet away.  The only other thing I can think of is the line from the wall to the RG is about 3x longer than it needs to be and is looped and zip tied to keep it neat.  Any possibility that the loop is acting like an antenna?