From time to time I find my connections booted on Yahoo, dropped on Skype, my Outlook failing to connect, Sharpreader hanging up etc. In the African stories they blame the telecom connections. Here we tend to blame first software (particularly if recently installed) then the PC, then maybe contemplate the modem or the router etc. I read the Mom post last night and felt sympathy. It's logical, you add new software, the calls drop out it must be Skype failing. I'm going to tell you that I'm not so sure. I'm going to put it in a separate post. For I've had the some similar stuggles and I bet similar data. The question is should we shoot the messenger? The messenger being Skype, or should we look a little deeper. Should we shoot the happy helpers in the Skype Forums? Perhaps not, although their advice is potentially getting way out of hand. Let me close this post with two little stories to set the scene.

It's been raining, very wet and damp for the last few days. I'm on a cable modem, the cable isn't underground. It's anecdotal, but when we've had bad weather it seems like we get more cutting out on our connection. The speed tests say it is fine. In fact my kids have complained too and they each have their own PC's which seems to suggest my drop outs may not be software rather in the hardware and not just my PC. In the past those occassions have sort of righted themselves. I'm not sure I really know how to beat up Comcast unless I can prove that's the problem.

Another story, when I first got my Vonage line the instructions clearly said put the ata box in front of my router. So I did. Unfortunately that little ATA couldn't handle that fact that 4 other PC's and a PS2 were crying for bandwidth. It all worked when we put Vonage behind the router. Now I'd note that from time to time my Vonage calls drop. However it's not used very much. So maybe it is my cable. However on a day like today when I've simply had connection problems (Skype usually goes first) often when Outlook and Sharpreader are doing their thing and I read forum posts I begin to wonder. If I spent as many hours on Vonage today as I spent on Skype maybe I would know. At least I could have tested this angle.

Now I'm going to confirm that like Neville I can also see it from Elizabeth's angle. See my next post. Let me say that something somewhere is wasting my time. When connections suck I too want the put my hand on the old phone. The thing is.. that retrograde step increasingly frustrates how I work.