Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SHANE02]

Usually I use calling cards when calling to NZ. But my bro in law just got a Skype phone so I got on Skype. I was impressed with the soun/voice quality calling both PC to PC and my PC to NZ land line.

However all the calls randomly dropped out/disconnected at various times, and I had to call back. Even PC to PC stuff disappeared. What's up with that?
It's cheap/free, but it's also a pain in the ass.


Does anyone else have this problem, or just me.?

[Hootsmon]

I've been using Skype for years and usually have no problem with the PC to PC connections (from here to UK)...however, I have noticed in the last 6 months or so that the quality of the connection is getting much worse. I don't know if it has anything to do with their sudden questionnaire to ask if people would be willing to pay to use Skype or if it's just that there's over 18 million people using it now...

[bassexpander]

I enjoy Skype... especially since MSN Messenger went totally crap after the last major update a few months back.

Messenger has become all but unusable for our family on any computer since. We've tried it on multiple computers with the same issues. Cams stopped working well. Audio quits working or everything crashes after connection.

Skype quality is far better. As for dropped calls, I haven't had so many problems recently. If you are on a wifi signal, it could be your modem causing troubles (or even a cable modem in any situation).

[OneWayTraffic]

45 minute call to NZ last Friday. No problems whatsoever. Perfect quality.

[proustme]

I called Singapore last night, spoke for over an hour, and things were peachy fine.

[SHANE02]

Ok, thanks. I'm with SK and wonder if the ISP is doing it. I have been reading of similar issues untill people changed ISP. I'm on a direct internet line, but we do have the Sk Broad and phone package.

BTW, SK Broadband have had so many complaints about the quality of calls on their VOIP phones, that they came over and re-connected our apt's wall phone and gave us a free secondary phone for another room. They are doing it for everyone.

[crossmr]

I regularly call for an hour or more back to canada. in the last year or so I've probably had only 1 or 2 calls crap out on me, but they were more likely local issues than skype issues.

[daniel-andersson]

I havn't had any problems with Skype before I arrived to Korea. My internet is really fast here, I can download things in 3 MB/s external and 10 MB/s internal. However when it comes to Skype here I have noticed three problems.

• My video freezes on the other side. Its possible to restart but after some time it freeze again.
  
• The sound level went down and sometimes bececomes really low.
  
• The call just ended suddenly.

My Swiz friend who lives nearby me in Seoul with a brand new computer had the exact same problem. Also this topic indicate that there are some problems with the videos... http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=143599

[travelnguy]

[daniel-andersson]

I will check the ping times the next time. I guess either the Skpe streaming protocol (which is something they havn't made themself) or the Windows Vista / Windows 7 protocols are not very good when it comes to high pings.

[crossmr]

[daniel-andersson]

Hi, I think the connection between South Korea and US / Canada maybe isn't as bad as South Korea <> Europe when it comes to ping times. Maybe Americans or Canadians would have a similar problem with skyping to Africa / Middle east according to the asumption that the problem is connected to the connection latency.

Skype-out calls are usually routed to some big server which would mean that it wouldn't have the same problem.

[daniel-andersson]

Hi, I made a Windows program that will auto restart the video feed in Skype. You can download it for free here. However I will not do any support for it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/122818/last4ever.zip

[crossmr]

[daniel-andersson]