Skype

[Freddo the Frog]

I like Skype

So far I have had good results with Skypeout connections to the UK with the odd exception at peak periods - I am using iBurst via the dreaded Northcliff tower. Hopefully it gets better when Linden comes on line. At weekends I connect via the Indaba tower and generally the line quality is perfect.

I had the same problem with credit cards - would not accept ABSA Mastercard or Nedbank VISA but it does accept 20twenty Mastercard (maybe because they have been acquired by Standard Chartered of the UK).

Strangely, my only call to the WBS help line on a Sunday afternoon was answered quickly, politely and the information obtained was helpful. Thanks Smittie. Am I missing something?

As an old fogie whose computer experience goes all the way back to punched cards and valves, I don't have the need to download 85GB of porn/videos/music every weekend so the current broadband offerings do the job for me. Sure I would like a 2MB/s connection for 15 pounds a month like my sister gets in London but it will come.

I'm not saying we must stop complaining at bad service, just temper things with a bit of realism.

 

[swordfish1]

As an old fogie whose computer experience goes all the way back to punched cards and valves, I don't have the need to download 85GB of porn/videos/music every weekend so the current broadband offerings do the job for me. Sure I would like a 2MB/s connection for 15 pounds a month like my sister gets in London but it will come.

wow, and have you tryed to SSH for 8-9 hours a day to your machine behind your iBurst modem? or run a service with it? Because I gave up after the first few attempts! Now I am running all kinds of stuff on my ADSL line without a hitch! When I come back home I know that the internet is up and running and I don't worry about it, unlike while I had iBurst, first thing in the morning and first thing after work is to check if it is still connected ... in 75% of the cases it wasn't connected! My ip address was changing on average every 30 minutes, pings often were in the thousands ... and I have view to the Northcliff tower!!! So please, if you have great connection with iBurst I am glad for you, but I didn't have one, I waited 2 months to get it fixed, they didn't fix it, they told me, well we sorry but the northcliff tower has problems and we don't know why! bloody idiots! look for new job if you don't know why! So WBS can stick their iBurst into their arses! And don't let me get started on how inferior and overpriced their modem is!

 

[Clipse]

Well the modem is R3000 right? and for 3gig its R599 a month right? Installation is R200 right? Lets work out if its really cheaper than 3gig adsl over 6months? Seems like alot of iburst users use it for 6months or less before they leave.

Iburst:
-
R3000(modem)+R200(installation) = R3200 initial startup cost, and then R599 / month for 3gig traffic. Over 6months this would work out (installation=R3200) + R3594 = R6794.
-
-
ADSL:
-
R450(modem/router)+R404(installation) = R854 initial startup cost, and then R599 / month + R220(3gig account) = R819 / month for 3gig traffic. Over 6months this would work out (installation=R854) + R4914 = R5768


As you can see, most expensive vs most expensive over 6months ADSL works out R1000 cheaper allready, not taking august price drops in concideration or lower priced packages. Lets quickly work with total over 6months for 384k. R450 + R404 + R359x6(august price) = R3008

Moral of the story, Iburst should not say for decent internet, Iburst is the cheapest, ive seen this in the forum so many times, not to mention once you get capped on ADSL extra usable GIGS cost ALOT less.

ADSL can be cheaper, bastards.. But IBURST is a ripoff monthly fee, they better freaken change the costs bigtime.

EDIT: Yes I know its a bit off topic, I just had the urge to make this as clear as I possibly could, and somehow this section triggered it.

 

[duderoo]

Not to change the subject but here in the UK I can call SA for 1p a minute on a landline to landline cheaper than anyone can their neighbour in SA.......shocking.

 

[swordfish1]

wow Clipse did somebody piss you off

I wrote this thousand times, but there are people that are soooooo much into the iBurst useless sh*t that they can't live without it ... they just need to know that they have 1 Mbit connection even though they can't use it about 99% of the time

I understand people that have no choice due to ADSL not being available in their area or because they really need mobility (although iBurst is not that mobile at all!). But the people with arguments about the 1 Mbit vs 512 kbps speed and some other nonsense like that are too dumb to argue with them ...

 

[renm]

Not the ADSL problem at all

Voice quality of SkypeOut (or any kind of VoIP solution) to landline very depends on the break-out routers at the calling destination country/city. VoIP to landline qualities are generally good in Europe, North America and Asia, but not in Africa and Southern America, esp. South Africa (mostly because we've got hellkom ). You can test it by yourself, call to Botswana is much better than calling SA.

Based on this reality, you can use any VoIP tech to call landline, SkypeOut using private protocol, there are lots of service provider based on standard SIP, but none of them works very good when you call SA local, on top of that, the rates to SA are high as well.

Skype is good for Pc-PC, PC-phone (call out of Africa), the communication between both calling parties is encrypted, and has got very strong firewall pass-through ability. Skype is more close to IM, and much better and safer than MSN messenger.

Actually we've got very nice SP here which based on SIP, zero27.net. I use it daily. Download the Xlite at Xten.com, open an account at zero27.net, buy voucher as you need, then ready to call. No payment problem at all. If you have SIP compatible hardware, you can get quite good voice quality, even call local landline/cell.

I'm not broker, i'm a zero27.net user.

 

[bwana]

skypeout was illegal ??????? WOW !!!

You're kidding right? Course it was - before feb. Any voip was afaik.

 

[Clipse]

****.. before february I communicated ALOT in Counterstrike over MIC ;-)

Hope no one will catch me *snigger*

hehehe

 

[freeek]

has any1 tried skype video calls?

 

[TheCynick]

has any1 tried skype video calls?

I tried it the other day between me (CPT) and head office (JNB). Low framerate but acceptable picture quality. Couldn't get the sound to work for some reason though...

 

[Clipse]

Any of you tried gizmo yet? Has alot more features than skype, and is targetted currently as the skype-killer tho still in beta

 

[bwana]

has any1 tried skype video calls?

I use iChat (compatible with AIM for those windows users who might wonder) for video and it rocks over adsl. Skype Video doesnt have a mac version yet - or didnt last time I checked.

 

[swordfish1]

Any of you tried gizmo yet? Has alot more features than skype, and is targetted currently as the skype-killer tho still in beta

I read about this ... I guess it will kill skype for PC-to-PC, but for PC-to-PHONE it is 3 times more expensive for where I use it most ... so it is very expensive alternative which I do not consider for now, although I believe the quality is better, and the support probably too (the Skype support suck big time!).