SKYPE on myWirelss

I tried PC to PC from SA to Belgium on 128k connection. Unfortunately it didn't work well at all .. there were long delays, and although the quality of the sound from Belgium was good, the outgoing sound received on the other side was poor. Worse, it frequently disconnected us approx. every minute or two. This was at around 2 a.m. when there should be relatively little other traffic. I do have a very weak signal though, so the problems may be due to Skype not handling the higher packetloss well.
 
Turtle:
1. What ave % packet loss are you getting?
2. What access technology was the user in Belgium using?
 
dbnnet said:
Turtle:
1. What ave % packet loss are you getting?
2. What access technology was the user in Belgium using?
Click to expand...
Hmm let me go test, I'm actually not sure of my packetloss.

ping -n 100 www.sentech.co.za
...
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 100, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Minimum = 65ms, Maximum = 418ms, Average = 114ms

Wow, that's not bad, I'm surprised, I just assumed the packetloss would be much higher given my poor signal strength. Now for a Belgian server:

Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 99, Lost = 1 (1% loss),
Minimum = 501ms, Maximum = 986ms, Average = 635ms

Also not bad packetloss, but the RTT range doesn't bode for a great (in terms of delay) VoIP conversation even in the best case scenario. I should check again at night.

My signal strength is usually no more than 2% - I usually connect on 1%, sometimes 0% or 2%. It used to be quite unstable with frequent disconnects and periods of hours where I could not connect at all, but I think they might have made some changes about a week or two back, as it suddenly seems much more stable lately. Interestingly, no matter how bad the signal gets though I can usually get close to my full bandwidth for local downloads (international is always clearly capped to 4KB/s after the initial several seconds). (Of course I understand BW and latency are two different things).

The connection in Belgium is a 512Mbit ADSL connection, with fairly low contention, it's very fast on that side (bandwidth-wise, latency-wise I'm not sure). It seems less likely that the problem is on that side.
 
I'm getting great Skype quality... but with the following:
Min=82 : Max=217 : Ave=138 ms : Packetloss = 0%

Turtle, I use a Poynting 8dBi patch that provides me with an
excellent signal to noise ratio. (I also have a 48% signal)
It may well be worth your while to look into something like
an 18dBi antenna to improve your situation though.
(Any chance that you can loan an antenna to see if it does
improve your Skype quality first though?)
1 or 2% really is scraping the bottom of the barrel :)
 
okay.. well I got 10 euros and landed up blowing 5 euros on going "testing" "tesing" and found it its MYWIRELESS UPLOAD SPEED THAT IS TOOOOOO SLOOOWW
/me punches sentech
 
vowthorn, would mind proving us with some feedback?
What new ISP service have you moved over to?
Are you able to provide a comparison now on the voice quality using Skype
on the new service?
 
heh heh right now I am on 56K waiting for iBurst to give me the stuff I need... but will do once I move over. However at work we use three services.

My Wireless 512 (or whatever they call it)
A diginet line
ADSL

dont ask why we have all three but I suppose its gives one an idea of various services and SKYPE is fine on all three...

ADSL is the best out of the lot... yup even over Diginet.
 
SKYPE on UNINET

I had no problems with billing but am struggling to get a good connection through uninet. Is anyone using uninet & SKYPE ?
 
Skype alternative

i've been using Callserve for years (www.callserve.com).
it does the same as skypeout (i.e only for pc to phone), slightly more expensive than skypeout, but i find the (sound)quality consistently better
but for pc to pc conversations skype definitely is the best
 
oy, just as i was reading about all the problems people seem to have buying skype credit, thinking 'what are they on about'.. i noticed it was time to top up my own credit again.
and behold, it didn't work with my visa card! something about card verification issues with my FNB card (i made several attempts).
luckily i also have a european visa card and that one worked fine the first time.

maybe Skype has little faith in south african issued creditcards...
 
pulver.Communicator

Has anyone tried pulver.Communicator?

I found that the voice quality is much lower than Skype, but the response is great - generally no lagging.
 
Hi,

I have a dualphone, quite a cool gadget, it integrates Skype AND a cordless DECT phone. So you can make calls on telcon and skype. Both ring on the phone so it awesome to receive calls or make them.

have a look at www.dualphone.co.za

Happy Skyping! It works great for me. Speak to my sister in the US for next to nothing!
 
Tried phoning a friend in germany. Both yesterday and today the quality is/was shocking! Im in cape town and the weather has been REAL wet down here for the last 2 days. I hope its because of that!! and not coz of sentech. My speeds are same as usal though?!
Anybody else experiencing anything similar?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X