Skype system any good?

Skype is getting lots of publicity at the moment  ($18m funding, Fortune article, etc..) but is the system better that what is currently available?

I am using Yahoo Messenger for PC 2 PC communication with my family abroad and find it ok for the job. It took me quite a time to get my family going on Messenger -- so I am not in a position to experiment with Skype -- any comments on if sound quality is any better? We all use 64k ISDN lines.

Based on Skype.com website - what I like of Skype:
- Conference call (up to 5 parties)

What I don't like of Skype
- No video yet (not a major deal if sound is great)

Thanks
Liam

Liam
Thursday, March 25, 2004

I've experimented with it.  I had one call (a while ago) that was the best sound quality call of my life.  Both of us using half-decent headsets it was like we were in the same room.

However, I have yet to repeat that experience.  Mostly its like a being on a cell phone driving on a superhighway, minutes of absolutely brilliant quality interspersed with periods (sometimes very long) of absolutely horrid breaks and lost packets.  And this is even after we opened up firewall ports to allow a direct link.

Since its free (and easy) go give it a try.

Ken Klose
Thursday, March 25, 2004

I tried it a while ago and found much the same, brilliant quality for short periods but terrible in between.  I have DSL and the person I want to chat with has dialup so we have a mismatch in bandwidth.  We also tried SIP Phone and messenger and they all get horribly out of sync with each other.  Netmeeting however, works well 95% of the time and sounds much better than a regular phone.  I have a static IP address and run my laptop as the DMZ on my local network (since H.323 is so badly designed and needs zillions of randomly open ports).  She has to call me every time but it works great.

David
Friday, March 26, 2004

  Recent Topics

  Fog Creek Home