voip: skype, vbuzzer, freephoneline, etc

[Chan Chung Hang Christopher]

> # Up to 1 Mbps download speed
> # Up to 256 Kbps upload speed 

Obligatory annoying post: When I have no choice, I still get 640kbps 
upload and minimum 1.5mbps download for a cutthroat monthly fee of 
40USD/mnth. I've not asked yet but I hope to get something better for 
less...<sigh>...i hate living in village houses but then this one is a 
quiet place with great public transport options etc...

I'm going to miss my 13USD 10mbps/10mbps connection in the high-rise and 
the opportunity to get 100mbps/100mbps for the same rate from another 
provider.


> 
> So, since the tech says it's operating within parameters, it should work. 
> However, I take that with a grain of salt.

:-D. I have a sip phone service and initially I had issues in the above 
village house because the sole provider of Internet connectivity decided 
to mess about with the sip packets because the sip phone service was 
from the 13USD 100mbps/100mbps provider and they were not happy with 
losing their fixed phone line to the sip line which was a third of the 
rate of the fixed line. So yeah, if it is not the line then it is the 
line provider messing about if you get poor quality and you are not 
using the Net at the same time. Or the providers have some nasty 
provider-provider connectivity issues whether 
technical/financial/political. Mine got sorted then with a letter to the 
OFTA who bared their teeth at the blooming provider who has a monopoly 
on last mile village access.


> 
>>> I had a PVR from the cable company but it would periodically basically 
>>> stop working, the image would be completely pixelated.
> [...]
>> Does that happen when there is high humidity or something? The school 
>> here used to see the Internet line speed hit rock bottom whenever it 
>> rained. Now that the school is on fibre, we have not had any such problem.
> 
> I thought it was storms, then it was random, but, yeah, could've been humidity.
> 
> Is it somewhat expected that skype would work acceptably where SIP cannot?  Of
> course, I'll continue working on SIP.
> 

Skype changes its encoding depending on the line speed. With sip, there 
are various encodings so you need to find out from your sip provider 
what they support and which works 'best' from your end. alaw, ulaw, or 
some other gsm encoding should work...