Line speed for good video chat?

[AmyD]

I've searched the forums but I can't seem to find a post that answers my question, so I hope someone can give me some insight into this.

My boyfriend is currently in Malaysia for work for 6 months. We try to video chat once a week, but its been incredibly challenging. We're both on 1mb lines (I upgraded mine from 384 about a month ago) but we've only been able to have one chat in two and half months that wasn't plagued by freezing, dropped calls, robotic voices etc. We've tried both Skype and Gmail video chat, gmail was only slightly better. I'm on Webafrica.

Are our line speeds too slow to expect decent quality? I can potentially upgrade my line to 4mb, but he is unable to upgrade as his work provides the line as part of the accommodation package. We're both getting around 0.8/0.4 on speedtest.

Can anyone give advice on how to improve things? Its very frustrating.

 

[Srack0verflow]

1mb lines in Malaysia? and here i was thinking we were behind

hmm can't you maybe force those applications to stream at a lower quality?

else either of the connections is dropping packets

edt://
iirc, skype uses a form of P2P, but surely the shapin...err i mean 'protocol prioritization' wouldn't affect it that much, WArep?

 

[NeonNinja]

1mb lines in Malaysia? and here i was thinking we were behind

hmm can't you maybe force those applications to stream at a lower quality?

else either of the connections is dropping packets

edt://
iirc, skype uses a form of P2P, but surely the shapin...err i mean 'protocol prioritization' wouldn't affect it that much, WArep?

What technology are they using? What price are they paying? What other FREE services are they offered?

 

[AmyD]

What technology are they using? What price are they paying? What other FREE services are they offered?

Malaysia is ranked almost the same as SA in terms of internet services. Its expensive and slow, just like here. Not everywhere in the world is better off than we are.