Skype And What They Don't tell You About It: Problems And Issues Part II

Skype is a revolutionary voice-over-IP technology that keeps bringing attention to its many unique and impressive capabilities. The tools is in beta and it is free to use (PC users only).

As I have been reporting before, Skype ability to provide a reliable quality audio connection over the Internet, may still be reserved only for those on a particular good Internet connection on even then not all the times.

Michael Term of the Associated Press reports similar problems to the ones I have been writing myself about.

Skype is really an exceptionally capable tool, but not so much because of its technological abilities, but rather for its truly powerful viral marketing approach and for the vast sudden awareness it has created for normal users in the potential of VoIP in supplanting traditional telephone systems.

Other times, it's considerably less fun.

Slower Internet connections or ones that keep slipping offline cause the sound to deteriorate or conk out completely. An inferior link can produce delays of several seconds — giving users a sense that they're speaking with someone on the moon.

So unless you can use Skype on faster lines, don't bother at all. Even with better connections, quality can occasionally be erratic — with the volume fading in and out or with the sound taking on a tin-can quality.

Skype is also subject to that variable so often at the root of life's failings — other human beings.

Headphone sets not plugged in or turned up properly by technically challenged users can foil attempts to talk to your party — even when Skype signals you've reached them successfully.

My key point remains that while thanks to Skype millions of users are finally discovering voice-over-IP, there are indeed much better and more reliable tools to carry out voice conversation online.

I am particularly concerned with those users not in highly developed countries and frequently using slow dial-up connection lines. Even for them voice-over IP is a reality today, and the fact that Skype doesn't cut it for all Internet users, shouldn't discourage them from testing out the cost-effective already available out there.

See full story at: Skype Tops Frustrations

See also: Please Skype Me: Disruptive P2P VoIP Technology Allows You To Call And Talk Free To Any Windows PC