Gong dialer network connectivity requirements

To ensure the highest quality calls possible using the Gong Dialer, you must make sure your network is set up properly so that you don’t experience problems such as: 

• Dropped calls

• Calls with delay

• Robotic sounding audio

• One-way audio

This article explains how to set up your network to ensure your reps are able to make high quality calls.

Voice Network Requirements

Following are the minimum requirements you must have in order to make calls using the Gong dialer:

• Computer hardware

• At least 8GB of RAM

• An i5 CPU or better to ensure consistently high performance

• Chrome browser (the most recent version running on Windows or Mac OS X).

If you are experiencing audio quality issues, check the CPU usage (in the activity monitor or task manager) of other apps to see if there are any spikes from other apps.

Choosing your headset

We recommend connecting a USB headset device directly to the system instead of a USB hub or computer dock. Devices not connected directly to computers may experience audio issues.

Selecting a browser

Gong dialer works best on Google Chrome. This is because Chrome is able to tag call media packets and prioritize them in your network.

Network settings

Any firewalls, switches, and wireless access points used should allow you to mark and prioritize traffic as this helps to ensure optimal voice quality. 

Your firewall should allow outgoing TCP and UDP traffic from your applications to Gong’s infrastructure and allow return traffic in response. The firewall should not allow externally initiated connections back into the network. 

If you are using a shared workspace that provides network infrastructure, forward this document, specifically the network configuration section, to their IT team. If they are unwilling to make these changes, call quality may be poor so we suggest avoiding VoIP and using a personal phone instead.

Connection settings

To ensure the best connection to your network, connect via Ethernet instead of WiFi. To call over WiFi, see the WiFi section below for details of the additional connection configurations. 

To make high-quality voice calls, ensure the following network metrics are met:

Calculating the required bandwidth

To make sure you have enough bandwidth to cover a high calling period, we recommend adding at least 20% to make sure you have enough bandwidth during a high calling period.

Configuring your network

This section lists the ports, IPs, and fully qualified domain names (FQDNS) used by Gong. You must explicitly add these when configuring your network. We recommend these are prioritized across your local network. If you have ANY-ANY configurations, this may affect performance.

IP Addresses

The IP address listed are used to process the audio of calls.

FQDNs

The FQDNs listed are used by Gong to set up calls (signaling).

SIP ALG settings

If your firewalls and routers have a SIP ALG setting, ensure that it is disabled to enable VoIP to work properly.

Prioritizing traffic

To ensure optimal voice quality, all Gong dialer voice traffic must be prioritized across your network.

Quality of Service (QOS)

Quality of Service, (QoS), helps ensure an optimal end-user experience for audio communications. QoS allows higher priorities for packets carrying audio data. By giving these packets a higher priority, audio packets can complete transmission faster, and with less interruption, than network sessions involving file transfers, web browsing, or database backups. Network packets used for file transfers or database backups are instead assigned a "best effort" priority.”

Gong dialer should be set to the highest priority your network equipment allows. Without this configuration, you may experience dropped calls, choppy audio, laggy audio, and robotic-sounding calls.  Depending on your equipment, you may be able to do this based on IP ranges and ports, or by using CoS.

Class of service (COS)

We recommend that all Gong dialer traffic is assigned a DSCP of 46 - EF and ensure that all equipment in your network is set to honor DSCP markings.

Using the dialer with Wifi

While calling over WiFi is possible, it is not recommended and we recommend you ethernet where possible. 

If you still want to make calls over WiFi, do the following to ensure optimal call quality:

• Prefer 5ghz connections over 2.4ghz

• Use 802.11AC or WiFi 6 where possible

• Apply traffic shaping policies to ensure Gong dialer traffic is prioritized over other wifi traffic

• Compare the number of connected devices per wireless access point against your manufacturer's documentation. If too many devices are connected, you may experience call quality issues.

• If you are still experiencing issues, perform a wireless site survey. This will help ensure the highest quality connections across the entirety of your environment

Testing your network

Once your network has been configured, we recommend running Twilio's network test to ensure that your connection is stable and that voice traffic can pass through your network.

It is possible to pass a test and still have call quality problems if traffic is not properly prioritized.

Unsupported Configurations

The following configurations are not supported for Gong dialer:

• Voice traffic routing over VPN

• Mobile / Satellite / Microwave internet

• Load balancers

• WAN Accelerators

• SIP ALG: should be turned off

• ANY/ANY rules for traffic on firewalls

• Double NAT’d networks

• Calling through Desktop as a Service solution like Amazon WorkSpaces and Citrix

WebRTC

Our web client uses Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC), an open source project supported by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla, amongst others, to enable real-time voice and video communication over peer-to-peer connections.

WebRTC is a set of protocols and APIs which lets web browsers get real-time information from other web browsers enabling group communications over the web, such as voice conversations, screen sharing, video and chat.