We're having a problem when calling a number in the Phillipines (Malolos city). The call starts off ok with both parties hearing each other, but then after a minute or two we hear a repeat of the other person's voice from a couple of minutes ago. This happened 4 times on Wednesday night, and once tonight. We have never managed to make a successful call there recently, but it has worked fine in the past.
I think the problem is probably network congestion...excessive packet loss is detected and some router re-sends all the buffered UDP VOIP packets again. I assume this is either in the phillipines, or in Shaw's connection to the phillipines. (Note that we're calling a landine, but the connection between Shaw and the phillipines presumably uses VOIP in the middle).
We're just a little irritated having to pay a high rate of 13c/min for a crap connection that is unusable. It wouldn't surprise me if the problem is in the phillipines, but I'd just like some explanation.
I've tried a few times using google hangouts, but it can't seem to dial this number either. First time we tried we got some recorded message about the ghost of someone's mother(?!) Today using hangouts it just rings and then there is silence. That would seem to suggest the problem is in the phillipines.
So here's my rant: why do we have to pay a ridiculously high price (13c/min is much higher than USA, UK, Japan, Australia or other developed country) for a ridiculously crappy phone service to the phillipines? I don't even need to pay to call USA, Australia, Japan or UK as I have the 1000 international long distance minutes. I know it's probably not Shaw's fault and there might be nothing you can do, but it's just a bit irritating that you're charging us for this (comparitively) very expensive phone service to the phillipines that is utterly useless. Ok, rant over. Overall I love Shaw and your service and support is generally excellent. I'm just hoping for some explanation here.
Hello groupboard, sorry to hear you've been having trouble with your calls to the Philippines! This sort of issue is often related to the routing of other companies we do go through for that location. Have you noticed if this occurs with just outbound calls to the Philippines or also with inbound calls from there? If just calls made out, what I would recommend is next time it happens, note down the time and number you called. Try making 3-4 more calls and see if it continues or if it's clear then contact us. We are able to pass along that information to be looked into for possible routing issues which can be corrected.