Woosh and Skype and speed question

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lchiu7

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Topic # 8590 13-Jul-2006 13:23

I was at a friend's house the other day to help her setup Skype. She has Woosh broadband. I noticed one strange thing about her Woosh connection and then another about speed. All the time we were there, the Woosh connection dialogue box would pop up intermittently (over the current Window) and you had to click it away. Looking at it, it seemed that the Woosh connection was dropping in and out all the time since when we checked mail we would occasionally get no mail server messages and then mail was okay.
She said Woosh say it's her PC but I can't think that's the issue. I think it's probably a signal strength issue so the modem is connecting and disconnecting all the time.

Having gotten Skype to work, I tried a Skype video call with her. I am on TCL 2Mbs/2Mbs service. She told me my video and voice were fine but her video was very jerky and the voice was more so. Looked like either a network latency issue or an upload speed issue with Woosh. I can't find it on the web site but just what is the Woosh upload speed?

I think we might be thinking of moving here to TCL instead since she already had the cable before. The only issue is she will need to either takeup cable TV or move one of her phone lines to TCL since TCL won't sell the entry level plans alone

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Reply # 40993 13-Jul-2006 20:17

Your friend has access to TCL cable and they went with woosh

WTF are they OK

lchiu7

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Reply # 40995 13-Jul-2006 20:44

Well there's a story there. They used to have TCL cable for her sons. But when both left home, the cable was disconnected (including cable TV) and they reverted to dialup. Then she (not being a technological person) decided she wanted something faster and saw the Woosh plans and thought they were pretty good. She is locked into a one year contract but can get out for $99 I think.

The problem now is, to get the TCL plans, she will need to either move one of her phone lines to TCL or get cable TV again so it's not so easy to swtich. I suspect any DSL plan is going to have the same problem with upload speed

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richms

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Reply # 41044 14-Jul-2006 12:42

The problem now is, to get the TCL plans, she will need to either move one of her phone lines to TCL or get cable TV again so it's not so easy to swtich. I suspect any DSL plan is going to have the same problem with upload speed

Welcome to the world of "triple play" as the marketdroids like to call it.

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sbiddle

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Reply # 41107 14-Jul-2006 18:27

You can get a TCL cable modem connection by itself. The only limitation is that it can't be a low end plan so the cheapest available is around $50ish. If you get this, dump your landline and pay $9.95 per month for an iTalk VoIP line you'll get phone + 2mbps/2mbps 10Gb internet and phone for $60 per month. Try getting that anywhere else!

sarahot

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Reply # 41157 15-Jul-2006 02:02

Plus iTalk only charges 30c/min for calls to mobiles and just 5 cents/min for calls to the 40 most popular countries.

lchiu7

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Reply # 41175 15-Jul-2006 15:09

That won't work. The second line is used for fax and the occasional dialup Internet which I don't think can be done via a VoIP phone

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richms

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Reply # 41180 15-Jul-2006 17:18

Fax can, just use g711 as the codec. Dialup is pretty much pointless over voip since if the nets down so you want to dialup you wouldnt have the voip to use.

Richard rich.ms

lchiu7

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Reply # 41800 17-Jul-2006 09:14

As usual there is more to the story. The second line is used for inbound and outbound fax. It's also used for DUN for Xtra since my friend wants to maintain her Xtra mailbox and Xtra have blocked access to their mail servers if you don't in via their gateway (not sure if the web interface works though)

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sbiddle

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Reply # 41811 17-Jul-2006 09:50

Slighty OT but I'm not quite sure why so many people rely on ISP email addresses these days. Things like Gmail and Yahoo are far better than any ISP's service and if you can afford US$8.95 per year you can register a .com or .net with a provider like godaddy.com and get your own domain and web/pop mail with 25MB storage and multiple accounts.

You can access Xtra Webmail from any internet connection and is you need pop access you can get a secure setup for a few $ extra per month.

tonyhughes

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Reply # 41815 17-Jul-2006 10:52

lchiu7: As usual there is more to the story. The second line is used for inbound and outbound fax. It's also used for DUN for Xtra since my friend wants to maintain her Xtra mailbox and Xtra have blocked access to their mail servers if you don't in via their gateway (not sure if the web interface works though)

Set up Gmail or similar. Re-route all ISP mail to new account, email everyone and tell them you will no longer recieve mail at the old address. Leave old address active for 2 weeks to catch any stragglers, then ditch Xtra. Easy.

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lchiu7

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Reply # 41841 17-Jul-2006 13:46

I am aware of all these solutions. The problem isn't technical, it's behavioural. She is reluctant to lose her Xtra account for fear that people who mail her irregularly will lose contact with her. And I can sympathise with that a bit. The last time I changed e-mail accounts I was sure I hadn't managed to contact everybody.

The problem has gone away for a while. We got some USB extension cables and moved her Woosh modem to a different location and now reception is much improved. But I would certainly agree with the sentiment expressed that if you can access TCL services, then nothing else makes sense (for the moment anyway)

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Andy_Walker

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Reply # 42300 24-Jul-2006 10:18

Hi, hey going back to very orighinal problem. If her main issue is that she wants to use Skype for cheap phone calls but the upload speed it preventing a good quality call then I have a recommendation. I've had the same issue.I find on my woosh connection Skype to Skype calls are fine, but VOIP to POTS calls are not so clear. I now place all my calls through VOIP Buster. It uses a call back service so you can make VOIP calls direct from your regular phone line or mobile. The quality is excellent, it does not require bandwidth, it is easy to use & you can make free calls to landlines in New Zealand, Australia, North America & many developed counteries in Eurpoe & Asia.

lchiu7

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Reply # 42305 24-Jul-2006 11:31

She did think about using Skype for cheap phone calls to the UK. That seems to work okay. But as soon as you tack on video, performance drops. Presumably that's because Woosh (and most DSL plans) have an upload speed of about 256Kbs?

When I did Skype video with her (I am on a TCL 2Mbs/2Mbs plan), she said my voice and video were clear. But her video was jerky and voice dropped out all the time. Clearly the asymmetric speed plans are not good for video conferencing.

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Andy_Walker

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Reply # 42309 24-Jul-2006 12:13

Yeah video is going to be your prob. I don't even have a web cam so it is not an issue I've had. What I have noticed is that for phone calls the VOIP Buster callback VOIP service is a much better quality that Skype to POTS over Woosh. It is also cheaper.

Downloads over Woosh are much faster than uploads.

lchiu7

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Reply # 42524 26-Jul-2006 14:20

She was looking at Skype to Skype which is zero cost apart from your Internet costs so thought might as well add video to it. No way!

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