Skype... Convince Me.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted member 651465
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Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

Considering buying a Skype telephone soon, as my girlfriend should be getting the net for the first time :cool:

THIS is the phone I'm considering; purely because it would fit in 100% with my Mac.

Just wondered if there's anyone here that uses Skype on OS X..


  • What phone do you have?
  • Do you like?
  • Are there better alternatives?
  • Any limitations on OS X?
  • Do you use SkypeOut at all?


Thanks muchos..

EVH



(mods feel free to move this.. was unsure of placement)
 
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well, first of all... VOIP (voice over the net) is going to be a lower cost than BT, NT Hell... ect.... BT are fast coming to a point where their is going to be a lot of demand for an internet only connection.... so they will have to do something about it....

basically, for me personally.... I'm quite happy at home with 2Mb BB and a PAYG mobile.... all my friends call be over the net (VOIP, MSN.... ect) as for work / agencies ect, thats what the mobile is for..... the BT land line I don't use (except BB)

It's cheap, it's fast, it's VOIP!
 
yoda said:
well, first of all... VOIP (voice over the net) is going to be a lower cost than BT, NT Hell... ect.... BT are fast coming to a point where their is going to be a lot of demand for an internet only connection.... so they will have to do something about it....

basically, for me personally.... I'm quite happy at home with 2Mb BB and a PAYG mobile.... all my friends call be over the net (VOIP, MSN.... ect) as for work / agencies ect, thats what the mobile is for..... the BT land line I don't use (except BB)

It's cheap, it's fast, it's VOIP!
Click to expand...

i thought skype was free to call people? only expense is the cost of buying th phones
 
Skype is free PC-PC. If you're calling a land-line, or basically anything that is going to go off the internet so to speak, its gonna cost you.

I use Skype on my Mac. Its not UB yet - but once its running its ok - but I only use it to do PC-PC, so I couldn't tell you on its performance at the moment for anything like VOIP.
 
Ok thanks so far guys :cool:

I looked at the costs for PC-Landline and it's not too steep, so I may just get it initially for PC-PC and use it for business here and there.

Anyone managed to get their phone totally compatible with Skype? I've heard rumours that only 1 or 2 phones will let you dial using the keypad :(
 
Also wondering with skype doing pc-pc is that does it take up a lot of your download limit thing. Like i hear there can be a limit to how much you can download per month and im afriad that if me and gf get it it would take up all hers. Also does it slow down the internt speed for other users? I am on a network wit 6 other pc's in the house so slowing it down could be a right pain. thanks everyone
 
If you're worried about bandwidth hogging you could always install a copy of netlimiter on each PC.

Not sure if it would hog the speed that much.. possibly if you let it hog all the upload bandwidth it would (AFAIK)
 
Whilst to use on a PC the software is only Windows at the mo, www.internetcalls.com allows Windows to landline calls for free (up to 1 minute if credit isnt purchased, although the credit isnt used). You get a proper number to hand out to friends and family and because it's SIP based you could buy an install a SIP phone then requiring no PC at all..

Fantastic honestly.... I now can call NZ (for business) and the US for free for as long as I like.
 
EVH said:
If you're worried about bandwidth hogging you could always install a copy of netlimiter on each PC.

Not sure if it would hog the speed that much.. possibly if you let it hog all the upload bandwidth it would (AFAIK)
Click to expand...

well its not that im worried about the bandwidth being hogged up so much its that i hear on like AOL adverts that you get a download limit per month and can be used up, and im pretty sure her interent is a cheap broadband connection so might have a download limit if its possible, so what im worried about is that it uses all the download limit in just a few calls and then her family cant use interent for the rest of month.

im planning on calling her like atleast 1 hour per nihgt, sometimes more, like 2 hours
 
could be easier to use something like rogerwilco/teamspeak/whatever set the codec to a really low setting (you will sound like a robot tho) ?
 
spirit said:
could be easier to use something like rogerwilco/teamspeak/whatever set the codec to a really low setting (you will sound like a robot tho) ?
Click to expand...

so does it tkae up a lot of the download limit? she might not have one but how much would u guess just 30mins per night would take up? that being 5 days a week?
 
Much better to stick with open sourced Voip - there are many voip providers who offer more economically attractive deals ie sipdiscount voipbuster and the others from the Fineara stable. Other than using voip (forget skype it's too expensive) then the telecom 1899 (also Fineara)
http://www.call1899.co.uk/index2.php
is cheaper than many voip packages

Don't forget that a good router will come with QOS giving priority to voip as indeed my own Fritzbox Fon does
 
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There are some very efficient voice compression algorithms out there. Consider a 128kbps MP3 file, I'm sure you will agree that it is significantly better quality than a BT land line call. I reckon Skype could be generating voice streams at data rates as low as 48-64kbps as their compression algorithm will be designed specifically for voice data.

So to answer your question, almost nothing for that kind of usage.
 
Comments.

Allthough this wont answer your question properly heres a scenario i setup with SKYPE recently.

My mum has a 250K up/down adsl from her ISP, i setup my brother to piggyback of off her adsl using WLAN as he lives acrosss the road and a few doors down.

Now both my brother my mum and my dad can use skype on seperate calls whilst downloading files, browsing etc with no loss of voice quality at all.

In fact my brother has recently purchased SKYPE in and out credit due to the quality being so good.

Regarding how much bandwidth Skype uses i would hazard a guess at less than 5-6K bytes per second as i have friends on standard 56K dialup i can chat to with a minimal loss of audio quality.

Im sure in skype you can monitor the connection to display compression statistics, dropped packets etc maybe in there it would show data transfer too im not sure.

If anyone wants to give it a try you can skype me my contact is RANGLER1558
Please drop me a line letting me know your from OCUK first though, thanks.

Enjoy..
 
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