Skype

I use Skype but the quality at the moment is terrible. I think voip has got a long way to go before you see it taking off properly. I am also a little worried about the privercy and security on voip, as you have no idea who could be listing in without your knowledge.

[Monty Burns]

I use Skype fine, to and from Germany/UK. Quality is perfectly ok.

Want to give us some technical info, scenario's etc? Maybe we can sort out what ever your issue is.


On the other issue:
Anything that is computerised can be cracked. Its a lot harder to do though than someone sneaking in to your house/listening at the exchange with POTS (Imo). Or what about someone pointing one of those vibration microphone thingies at your window .... If your gonna be paranoid then maybe not say anything at all?

[fortean]

Skype uses other peoples PC's to route calls and the connection to these nodes can be a cause of poor quality. Don't judge VoIP based on your experience of Skype. True VoIP will offer excellent quality. In fact whenever you make a long distance call part of that distance will be VoIP. The method Skype uses to secure a call against someone listening in is very good; mainly because the call passes through someone elses PC.

[Loobster]

Originally Posted by fortean

Skype uses other peoples PC's to route calls and the connection to these nodes can be a cause of poor quality.

What? Whoever told you that.

That would be pointless and would reduce the call quality to zero. I quite frankly think it's fantasy.

I use Skype a few times a week from the UK to the USA, quality is always superb and far in excess of a POTS line, no exceptions. It even works very well when calling my grandma-in-law who is using a P3-500 with 64MB RAM running XP Pro SP2 and is at the edge of a wireless bubble created by my father-in-law's router. If it works with that, it should work with anything.

10blue, I think your setup may need adjusting, if your Skype quality is consistently poor then something is wrong somewhere.

--Loob.

[mucca_D]

@10blue, do not view VOIP as bad using skype or any PC based tools as your standard. VOIP works now and has worked for many years perfectly, infact if you make a transatlantic call using BT you will transverse a VOIP section already with out even noticing.

@fortean, Skype voice does not transverse other users PCs. But you may be getting confussed with that file transfer over skype does somtimes get routed through another users connection.

One thing I find odd for me with skype (again not a skype prob I think) is that I get perfect sound calling everyone except one person that he also get good sound aprt form when we call each other!

[Monty Burns]

Don't ya find it funny ... and this isn't the first time ... that people complain that something is pants so you offer to help and they vanish?

[fortean]

@mucca D

Perhaps you should read this...
http://www.skype.com/products/explained.html

[mucca_D]

Originally Posted by fortean

@mucca D

Perhaps you should read this...
http://www.skype.com/products/explained.html

From the link

Firewall and NAT (Network Address Translation) traversal.
Non-firewalled clients and clients on publicly routable IP addresses are able to help NAT’ed nodes to communicate by routing calls. This allows two clients who otherwise would not be able to communicate to speak with each other. Because the calls are encrypted end-to-end, proxies limit the security or privacy risk.

Likewise, only proxies with available spare resources are chosen so that the performance for these users is not affected.

Several new techniques were also developed in order to avoid end-user configuration of gateways and firewalls, whose non-intuitive configuration settings typically prohibit the majority of users from communicating successfully. In short, Skype works behind the majority of firewalls and gateways with no special configuration.

Strange I thought it was only file transfer, but calls? need more info, wil dig into this, wnaders off scratching head

[mucca_D]

I am not convinced that when they say call, they just mean p2p file transfer

more info
http://support.skype.com/?_a=knowled...details&_i=125

[fortean]

The consensus of opinion amongst our engineers is that the Skype document about call routing is accurate. Strange though, a Skype page on the Skype website describing how Skype calls are routed; and they got it right. They must be clever at Skype being able to describe how they do things.

[Loobster]

Mucca_D posts an interesting link though. If all relayed transfers are limited (intentionally, by skype) to 1KB/sec, this means that effectively it is NEVER used for voice calls.

This makes total sense. For voice calls to be relayed through another user's computer would be idiocy, given that the call quality would be reduced to such a level as to make it unusable - and give a false impression of skype's quality.

Fortean, using sarcasm doesn't reinforce your point, in fact it undermines it. I suggest that as well as reading what's on the Skype site you also use your head to determine what's feasable and what's not. The wording on the pages linked still leave enough ambiguity for each advocate to be correct in their assertion - but real-world observations are not as generous.

--Loob.

[fortean]

http://support.skype.com/index.php?_...details&_i=143
File transfer is limited because the machine it is being routed through will also be available for call routing which requires approx. 8Kbytes per second. Voice calls have to be given priority.

[mucca_D]

Yes. When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy. In some cases your Skype communication may be routed via other users in the peer-to-peer network. Skype encryption protects you from potential eavesdropping from malicious users.

Well if this is the case and its looking more and more like that then I got to ask the question,,,

Just how many people are NOT behind firewalls and NAted routers?

I mean I have used p2p and I see nothing in my logs that show incoming connections to skype other than when making or reciving calls???

D

[fortean]

Originally Posted by mucca_D

Just how many people are NOT behind firewalls and NAted routers?

For a PC to become a node or supernode the following conditions will usually have to be met...
The PC must have a fixed, public, IP address (a PC can appear to have a fixed public IP address even if it's behind a NAT firewall or router)
There must be a suitable port open to the public network
It must be running the Skype application
There must be sufficient bandwith available
It must be mostly idle

I'm not exactly sure about this bit but I believe that the routing does not require the data to get any further than the network card; it is received and retransmitted on the fly. If that is right the Windows firewall or any other logging would not see the packets.

With the spread of ADSL there are a significant number of PC's that qualify

[mucca_D]

Originally Posted by fortean

For a PC to become a node or supernode the following conditions will usually have to be met...
The PC must have a fixed, public, IP address (a PC can appear to have a fixed public IP address even if it's behind a NAT firewall or router)
There must be a suitable port open to the public network
It must be running the Skype application
There must be sufficient bandwith available
It must be mostly idle

I'm not exactly sure about this bit but I believe that the routing does not require the data to get any further than the network card; it is received and retransmitted on the fly. If that is right the Windows firewall or any other logging would not see the packets.

With the spread of ADSL there are a significant number of PC's that qualify

Ok, so Fixed Ip not an an issue.

The firewall will have to be doing PNAT for the specific port for it to apear on the public IP as if it was in the open, which is not a problem, but which port is it and how is SKYPE opening this on the inbound port?

As far as the rest is concerned---

The connection from your router to your pc LAN port is ethernet not IP so does not see the info inside the IP packet nor is the NIC card able to read the IP (yes you can get layer 3 cards but they are not for normal use,,, yet!!)

So it needs to get to the software (SKYPE),, ?????