Skype voicequality

[leonb]

I'm trying to use skype, but the voice quality is not good. I get break-ups, delays, etc.

Is there a specific way we here in South Africa needs to configure skype to work optimally (specific ports etc.).

I'm on ADSL 192 using a normal SAIX shaped account. I don't want to get a shaped account for skype only, as I will only be using it now and then to phone overseas friends.

 

[MaD]

If there is voice breakup it could be due to bad latency.. it could also be that one of you had insufficient bandwidth? Under normal conditions it should work fine.. perhaps try the VoIP capability test at http://www.talkswitch.com/voip/voip_test.php or http://www.testyourvoip.com/ or http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/ and ask the call recipient in question to try it as well?

 

[rburley]

skype works perfectly with 192.
I get perfect quality with skype will i download P2P.
I dont think it is a bandwidth issue

 

[MaD]

Must be on his mates side then? Ask him to go to http://www.whatismyip.com/ and ping him, see what the results are. Latency can be a bitch with voip.

 

[Silent_Bob]

yeah, when i at my mates place with adsl 192, we can be downloading at 22kb/ps and skype works fine, jus sumtimes takes a while to login

 

[leonb]

I even get breakups on Skype's echo/sound test service.

I did the VOIP tests, says I can do between 1 and 3 simultaneous VOIP calls (~160kbps download and 64kbps upload).

 

[renm]

if you are using WinXP, check your network card properties, try to disable/unchecked the "QoS Packet Scheduler"

you can find it on right click the network connection icon->Properties...

hope that helps

 

[renm]

FYI,

Q. How do I stop the Quality of Service (QOS) systems reserving Internet connection bandwidth.

For those that don't know, the quality of service additions to TCP/IP reserve a portion (20%) of all your network connection's bandwidth. This isn't as bad as it sounds at first - let me explain: Quality of Service is designed to provide applications that need guaranteed transmission of data with the ability to reserve space on a network for themselves - examples of applications that need this could be video or internet telephone systems.

If you are not running any services that need to use QOS then the space "reserved" for QOS is not used. In the event you are running a service that can take advantage of QOS, it can reserve a percentage of your bandwidth if it needs it. If nothing needs QOS then the bandwidth that would otherwise be reserved for QOS apps is available to all things that want it.

Despite what various places might claim, turning this figure down or off will not make your network games run faster on a normal home connection, nor will it speed up general internet surfing. For the average user, playing with this setting will not do anything to make your system run faster or "better". Having said all that, if you still want to change the setting here is how to do it.

Open the start menu, click Run and type in gpedit.msc then hit enter. The Group Policy Editor MMC snap-in will open. Open Computer Configuration, then expand Administrative Templates, QoS Packet Scheduler.

Double click Limit reservable bandwidth and select "Enabled" and then set your bandwidth limit as desired, say 1% instead of the default 20%. Don't leave it on disabled, because the disabled setting doesn't mean "disable QoS" it means "Disable custom setting of QoS values". Got that? So disabling it doesn't disable the setting, it disables your ability to change the setting. If you have a headache and need to lie down now, I won't blame you. Similarly, the "not configured" setting means "Leave this as whatever is set on the computer already", and what is set on the computer already is the default setting of "20%". Confused yet?