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Martin Geddes
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SkypeOut: Not good enough

February 20, 2006 04:43 PM

Topics: Business | Skype杂志 | ebay | skype | skypejournal | voip

At my in-laws here in snowy and overcast Vilnius, Lithuania.

Their DSL connection is only 256kbit/128kbit, but does me fine for most of what I need to do. And it’s fairly cheap — about US$13/month for 6Gb. (Although French readers will be snickering at this point…)

I find Skype-to-Skype calls work just fine from here. Although it’s terrible to configure with a USB headset, BT Communicator makes great-sounding calls to the UK. But SkypeOut? Forget it. Novelty value only.

I’m consistently finding the same at home too in Scotland, with a much meatier Net connection. And in the USA. This is getting to be more than anecdotal.

There’s a branding tension between the “free” part of Skype and the “better” part which shows up here. They’ve aligned SkypeOut with the “cheap” side. In their own words on the home page (my highlights):

You can call anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world for free. And you’ll always be able to do that. There are some other useful things you can do on Skype that aren’t free (but they’re pretty cheap, actually).

And on the next page:

That’s why we have SkypeOut, a low cost way to make calls from Skype to friends who still use those traditional landlines or mobile phones. That means calling anyone, anywhere in the world at local rates.

Not a single mention of clarity or quality. Spot the open goal into which some competitors might kick the ball?

So they’re positioning themselves as a price leader, which is kind of tough when they generally aren’t. And it isn’t a very attractive business proposition either. There are much bigger players with global networks and zillions of minutes who can probably buy wholesale cheaper than you. And do you really want to boast to your investors and owners that your aim is to raise as little revenue as you can get away with? There’s always someone else willing to offer a lower rate and ever worse experience.

But the thing that attracted me to Skype originally was that it was better as well as free. The presence, IM and file transfer made it irresistable to many SOHO/small biz workers like me. The wideband audio makes for a more personal feeling when talking to colleagues and clients — the distance fades away from the mind. Why complement the best on-net call quality around with a lousy PSTN experience? We’ll pay for quality, really!

SkypeIn seems to works OK. I know it isn’t the connection itself that’s at fault. Please, make this product work properly!

Martin is only free, not cheap, with his Telepocalyptic opinions.

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Comments

Posted by: Rick at February 20, 2006 6:47 PM

But isn't the connection the problem. I'm referring to the border interface between the IP and PSTN networks. You lose good sound quality there.

Gips has developed a recent product to solve this problem. It's their Border Interface Engine (BIE). Just get all the carriers to install it. :-)

http://www.globalipsound.com/newsroom/newsroom.php?newsID=141&tot=96

Posted by: Bill Gribble at February 21, 2006 8:29 AM

Yes Martin I echo your distillation of what makes Skype a value to users....desktop communication. Skypeout and Skypein are a bonus, and I puchase bunches of credit....but the core value is desktop to desktop. How is this sustainable economically though?

Posted by: Tony Vaswani at February 22, 2006 9:19 AM

I have used Skyeout service from India for several months and I call my father and son in USA and my daughter in Canada. I call them on their mobile phones at 2 cents a minute with digital quality sound. I even make business calls and they cannot make out i calling on the net

Posted by: Anon at February 22, 2006 11:38 AM

Indeed SkypeOut (and SkypeIn) Suck Bigtime. I've used both from the start and extensively. I often buy up more than 50 Euro of Skype credit per month. I guess a big slice of that goes on dropped calls, one side calls, and unusable calls. You get only the first 5 seconds free, then you're charged the full minute. A problem when you call UK Cellphones or non-cheaprate countries as I often do, not long enough to determine if the other side can hear you or not. And I absolutely hate that every now and again it forces up your browser, on a non-encrypted URL containing the number you have called, to send back feedback. That is so insecure and unprofessional not giving me the option to opt out. So, why do I use it if its so bad and unreliable? I just keep hoping it'll get better. But it doesn't. And I guess I'll have to start looking for alternatives, as Skype, including the CEO himself, don't care anymore. They've made their money and are onto other things now.

Posted by: Torben at February 26, 2006 8:16 AM

Skype Claims:
"Call anyone on any phone anywhere in the world, at local rates.
Get SkypeOut"
NOT TRUE!
Not even if you don't consider 900- and 800- numbers !
Try out the Dialing Wizard: http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rates/dialing.html
enter 70 and Denmark as country.
That rules out my ISP and several other corperations and govermental departments. And why it is so? Don't expect an explanation from Skype!

Posted by: noyb at February 26, 2006 2:28 PM

I've used SkypeOut for well over a year to call from the US to Europe (Portugal and Italy) with no issues what so ever!
Call quality is always better then regular PSTN.

Posted by: Torben at February 27, 2006 5:34 PM

I have used SkypeOut since it arrived. It has developed to be better and is most of the time realy ok.
But it isn't stable enough to relay on as the only landline option, it is too dependend on the current connection AND you CAN'T CALL all numbers!
My local SkypeIn works fine, as most other report.

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