Jamie's Random Musings on Video IM
Having spent a good part of the last year struggling with a variety of video chat and IM programs, I have decided to write a few things down and see what other people have to say about them.
Monday 8 September 2008, 8:48 AM
Skype Roundup - Heart Warming, Heart Breaking
The Skype Cheerleading Sqaud has been soliciting contributions on the subject of "What Skype Means To Me". Skype's Director of Windows Product Management, Michael Bartlett, submitted a heart-warming story about his girlfriend's family having a video chat between England and Australia. I have a couple of similar stories, with a different outcome, that I would like Mr. Bartlett (or anyone else at Skype) to consider and respond to...although I am very well aware that they will not do so.
The first concerns a man who was a missionary, and went to Africa. His wife and their children were in Spain, and both his and his wife's parents were in America. They all wanted desperately to video chat with each other, and they had been told of this program called "Skype" which they could use to do that. Unfortunately, Skype video wouldn't work on the wife's computer, and her repeated attempts to contact Skype "Support" for assistance were never answered, and she finally gave up in disgust and depression.
The second concerns an American student who was going to study in Asia. This one did all his homework and preparation, got Skype installed and tested on his computer so that he could use it to stay in contact with his family as he traveled. On the second day of his trip, Skype blocked his account, so he could not make any SkypeOut calls or receive any SkypeIn calls, effectively cutting him off from his family. Despite repeated pleas for assistance, or even an explanation of what had been done and why, he never even got an answer from Skype for the rest of his trip.
Like Mr. Bartlett's story, both of these situations ended up with the participants in tears. But these were not tears of joy, and there was no "laughter, the giggling and the excitement". There was anguish, and despair, and isolation, because Skype doesn't even care enough about their "beloved users" to put a support organization in place.
Ironically, this weekend my partner tried to talk to one of her best friends, who recently had a baby. Those friends still had Skype installed, so that was what she used... the call came in, the audio came up, and the video froze. Several tries, adjusting various things, didn't help. So she had to settle for seeing pictures of the mother and baby. I can offer two bits of advice and assistance to those who have this problem with Skype: first, the "take a video picture" function still works, even when the video is frozen, and you get an updated picture each time, so you can at least see still shots of those on the other end; second, as soon as the call is finished, THROW SKYPE IN THE TRASH WHERE IT BELONGS, and install ooVoo, or SightSpeed, or TokBox. They work, as do various other alternatives, they don't freeze up, and they ALL have serious Customer Support groups to help their users when things go awry.
Other topics, carried over from the past few weeks:
- Skype Account Hijackings: There has been absolutely no comment or explanation from Skype about this (of course). Apparently the Skype Cheerleading Squad's "Asking Skype PR to comment" didn't produce any results either, what a surprise! The comments posted to the original Register article make for an interesting read.
- Skype Back Door: Likewise no comment from Skype, in more than a month since this article and a variety of follow-ups have been posted. Is there a back door for monitoring Skype calls or not? If there is, who are they giving the keys to? Does the back door have anything to do with the apparently inexplicable compromising of Skype accounts in the previous article?
- VoIP Watch by Andy Abramson tries to diplomatically say that a company doesn't descend to where Skype is now without serious management problems. In my opinion, any talented technical or management people who were originally at Skype have long since left, and what is left today are those who were forced to go there by eBay, and are simply trying to "serve their time and get out", and the "mercenaries" who hoped to jump onto one of the rapidly rising stars of the internet and get rich quick. They are now starting to realize their mistake, having seen the company from the inside, and they will be abandoning ship as soon as possible.
Last, but certainly not least, the subject of Skype SuperNodes has started popping up more frequently. The problem is that when you install Skype, you are automatically volunteering to be chosen as a Skype "SuperNode", thus donating part of your internet bandwidth and processing power to Skype and other Skype users. Skype tries to down-play this, saying that it rarely happens to ordinary users, but I have seen it happen to my laptop, and there is certainly nothing special about it, so I'm convinced it could happen to anyone. The XML Networking Blog says that there is a way to prevent this from happening with a registry switch, If you are brave enough, and determined enough, to get into registry editing just so that you can install Skype and not have it "appropriate" your network connection... well, good luck to you.
jw 8/9/2008
PreviousComments on this post
Jamie, I quite enjoy your comments, but I still feel you are a bit hard on Skype. As yet, I use Skypeout for personal, business and conference calls. The quality is lacking at times, admittedly, but worst of all after a few conference calls they began to charge me… no doubt under their “fair usage” clause. I did use about 350 minutes a day for a couple of days in a row. After that, my Skypeout cost me 25 cents per minute for even local calls! This lasted the rest of the Month. I plan to see what they will do about this and by what you say they will not even respond.
My question is simple. For personal, small home business and conference phone calls in Canada and USA, not requiring Video, what would you recommend? We have high speed and very soon will have fiber optics. We plan to use VoIP and cellular phones only. Our budget is restricted [I’m married ;) ]. So far, I have not found anything that matches or comes close to Skype for pricing.
What would you recommend?
Thank you,
Don Shenton
Don, Thanks for reading and commenting.
I'm rather bemused that you think I am a bit hard on Skype, and yet you have personally experienced calls which are lacking quality, and they suddenly started charging you a VERY significant amount for calls? I suppose that it shows we each have our own opinions and limits. It will be interesting to see if you get any response at all, and if so whether it makes any sense.
For phone and IM text use only, I strongly recommend Gizmo5. Their service is good, customer support is excellent, and when I compared prices not too long ago they were at least as good as Skype, and often better. For business users they also have a business account which lets you manage multiple individual accounts, add central call-out credit and then allocate it separately to the individual accounts, and gives you a good overview of usage and costs. Phone is what Gizmo started with, what they have concentrated on, and they are very good at it.
jw
Jamie, Thanks for your kind reply. I highly appreciate your comments and opinions. Gizmo here we come...
Right now I am in the midst of dealing with Skype on my issues. Amazingly enough I got some reasonable answers after the first "boiler plate" reply that meant nothing. After more emails, I received an admission that I should not have been charged according to the "fair usage" clause, because I have Skype Pro. With that was a 10 euro voucher which I have not yet tried to claim. I need one for five times that.
The refund will not be worth the effort, but I am trying to prove what Skype are made of.
Thank you again, Jamie.
