Zippity:

Install Viber Desktop on your PC.

 

https://www.viber.com/en/

How no cellphone coverage is your no cellphone coverage? Completely zero, or can you get 1 bar of signal somewhere on the roof / property?

Are you 100% sure there is no wireless ISP or rural broadband available at your address (rural broadband has special antennas which may allow it to work even though you have no cell coverage)?

These will be far superior to satellite broadband.

I wonder too if you have any high ground at your property, if there is a wireless ISP whether you can setup a repeater from a hill down to your house?

Hi All

Thanks for the suggestions, but my situation revolves around the audio reception achieved by satellite internet connection. There is lag of about 700ms. Is it possible that "packet" loss causes the poor quality?

All the phone providers show a lack of coverage in my area on 2G. and a continuing lack of coverage for pending 3G & 4G. I am currently using Vodafone when I go to town.  There are currently no reception bars at home, and only get some after driving for about 25 minutes.

I do have a Skype  internet linkup, but it is "choppy" even on the audio receive (download  up to 10Mbps). Upload (much less than download) has the same effect.

My ISP (satellite) tells me that they can provide a Skype substitute, but at a monthly charge. My question is, how can they do this while other systems can't? They say that they use SIP(???) protocol.

The SIP account that the provider would setup probably will have a dedicated channel / VLAN / QoS etc. for its traffic.

garyasta:

 

 

 

My ISP (satellite) tells me that they can provide a Skype substitute, but at a monthly charge. My question is, how can they do this while other systems can't? They say that they use SIP(???) protocol.

 

As sbiddle mentioned, It's unlikely SIP will be any better, unless maybe they are using some kind of QoS perhaps to priotirise that traffic. If latency, jitter and packet loss are issues, the OPUS codec over SIP would be the best candidate to handle this, which is the same as Skype, and I'd be surprised if they were as OPUS hasn't been very common in SIP deployments to date due to uncertainty with licencing in some situations.

The Skinny Broadband product says you can't use "VoIP" but you can use Skype for the same reason - 3/4G connections can also be problematic for most SIP voice codecs in common use.

Couple of other things:

1) I know you have no mobile coverage, but assume you have Wifi? If so, have you tried Skype from your mobile over Wifi? That may rule out any issues with the PC you are using.
2) If using a PC, check what else it's doing as well as any other devices on your network. I have many times had Skype calls go choppy and I am not doing any else on the internet, but have dug around and found Windows is downloading an update, or OneDrive is uploading a file and saturating the bandwidth etc. If you had good results to start with, hopefully the connection is capable of it.
3) Have you considered any other options than wireless nation? I know you don't have many, such as Uber?

Zeon:

 

Are you 100% sure there is no wireless ISP or rural broadband available at your address (rural broadband has special antennas which may allow it to work even though you have no cell coverage)?

 

These will be far superior to satellite broadband.

 

 

 

I wonder too if you have any high ground at your property, if there is a wireless ISP whether you can setup a repeater from a hill down to your house?

 

That's why I asked about Uber. Their geographic footprint covering Northland is vastly superior to the mobile networks. There aren't many places they don't cover.

I have done pretty comprehensive checks on various ISP's on coverage in our area and Uber is one of them. No go!

Yeh it appears that 700ms is going to be a bit high for a nice conversation. This is your primary problem. Skype or SIP both broadcast UDP packets, and then they are played back as they are received. Which will cause latency and blips. As a rule of thumb humans wont really notice a conversation being "laggy" if the latency is less than about 120ms.

I think what these guys are trying to do is see if there is an alternative internet connection option. You will need about 128kbps each way with an ideal latency of less than 200ms. You might be able to get creative with some wireless gear yourself.

The only other effective option I can think of is doing what my sister does, she records whatsapp messages about 30 seconds to 1 minute long and sends them and I play them back. Does it a lot when she travels and I do the same and send them back to her, shes in and out of airports all over the world so she picks them up on wifi when shes sitting down having a coffee or something.