Comments on: Is the Skype outage really a big deal?

Skype's free IP telephony application experienced a major outage on Thursday, but things seem to be back to normal as pundits flap their gums about what it all means.

[exalien]

Uh, yes...it is

As of Friday, 3:00pm (EST), my Skype icon is still flailing it's arms wildly attempting to connect and has been since Thursday morning.

As a website developer, I work for a company in which the entire staff works from home and relies on Skype as our primary means of communcation with each other and our clients, so this has been more than a little annoying.

[Sam Papelbon]

haha

owned

[daftkey]

Good thing..

..that your web design company isn't a real business that makes long term decisions based on your business needs rather than just short term cost/profit then.

Otherwise you wouldn't have this problem.

[lixpaulian]

Skype back again? are you joking?

...no, it's not back again. And no, there are no less than 24 hours
since the service is down, we are approaching 48 hours since no
service available!

And yes, I will be one of those who will delete the Skype application
from my hard disk. I downloaded today Gizmo and will probably
stay with it... it's only a matter of bringing everybody on Gismo. I
doubt Skype will ever recover...

[jasonpowell_tx]

SKYPE in Houston

My office here in Houston uses Skype as our instant messaging application. As of 2:13 pm CST on Friday 7/17/07; we still can't use skype.

Problem? Yes. Big problem? Perhaps.

Me and all my colleagues have all grown somewhat 'attached' to SKYPE and were recently beginning to use it for calls. I got a few of my friends and my girlfriend to download skype on their home PC's and we all have it on our smartphones.

So in a nutshell: SKYPE has been blossoming since the owners of our up and coming financial company said we're using it. And if come Monday morning there's still issues; guess what? We probably won't use it anymore. And that's about 75 people. So if there's more stories like mine; then yes; this can be a very big deal.

[jelloburn]

Perhaps...

I agree that this could perhaps be a big deal to some people, like
the ones that ONLY use Skype for business communications, but
then again, why would any person in their right mind put all
their eggs in one basket when it comes to voice communication?
Most people in businesses have cell phones, and use their office
line when they are in the office. If Skype goes down, than you
should have a cell phone to fall back on.

As for other posters complaints regarding using Skype for
interoffice communication I find it hard to believe you would
work in an office where you didn't have phones capable of
conference calls, or an application such as iChat, which allows
for video and voice conference calls over a local network.

It seems to me that the only thing that this Skype outage
showed us is how unprepared people are and a complete lack of
foresight, especially with free services.

[jasonpowell_tx]

Big Deal

We have phones; we have email. Hell; we sit feet from each other.

The fact of the matter is we use Skype for instant messaging; and we have lots of remote employees. It's just a apin in the @ss...that's all.

Is it going to tank our business? Of course not; but the article was asking if it's a big deal for SKYPE; and it is considering that this is inconveniencing lots of folks.

[digitizit]

It's still not over

It's been more than 24 hours, and the outage is not over and the issues are not fixed. I do a lot of work remotely with users around the world, and we use Skype as our primary means of communication. Fortunately, we still have email and other IM clients to choose from. It's 3:40pm EST and we still can't communicate with each other on Skype.

[nicmart]

Skype follies

Lately I've been thinking of what fun it would be to compile a list
of the deficiencies of the Mac verson of Skype. Surely it is the
clumsiest, most incompetently designed, Mac software which
has ever been in wide use. I suspect it is designed by a nihilist
cult opposed to reason, logic, and elegance. Or maybe it is a test
of human tolerance for bewilderment. Barely a click on Skype
fails to leave the user contemplating, "What could the designers
have been thinking?" In dozens of little ways, ranging from
having to reopen the full window to duplicate a user search to
not being able to modify an existing contact, Skype announces,
"Yes, it is possible to do damned near everything badly." If there
are Skype beta testers they must be a confederacy of dunces.
Skype is the software Chernobyl.

[dmcg9]

I agree

I totally agree with your assessment of the Mac version. It's hard to
believe it exists in such a primitive form at all...

[tva995]

yes, big deal

out for almost 48 hours here... was working on a big deal at the time... big black mark for skype i'm afraid...

[zboot]

Yeah Right

A little over a year ago, when I was a starving college student who could barely afford the minimum cell phone plan and was using skype as a way to keep up with job interviews, skype downtime would be a "big deal". If you are that hard up that skype is your primary means of communication so much so that it can cost you a "big deal". . . ummm. . I can't see how you can feel this is a black mark. . .I mean, what do you really have available to switch to? Just about anything else is more expensive.

[dewriver]

It IS a BIG DEAL!

In a time that we measure the downtime by minutes for any web service, a 24 hour outage is HUGE!!! Forget about your SLA, at least 10% of existing users will never come back!

I do feel for these poor skype developers, though. Cannot image how much pressure they are getting now... and someone will loose their job after this.

[zboot]

Not True at All

The website Hammer of Truth has been "down" for months. . .almost a year. I still await for it to come back up. When my comcast cable went down for a couple days, I didn't switch to direct tv. I'm pretty sure almost nobody did. With Skype being dirt cheap. . . why would I not come back? If I get soda for free at some store and the store shuts down for 24 hours, you seriously think people would stop coming by after it reopened? For something as usable and great as skype at prices that make it next to free, it will never be at a loss for users. The downtime would need to stretch into weeks before skype saw a loss of 10% of its user base.

[jelloburn]

A great example...

... would be World of Warcraft, which has servers go down for
maintenance it seems like every 4-5 days for hours at a time.
People are paying a premium to play that game and they aren't
having problems with people leaving because their servers go
down.

It seems that people who receive free services or extraordinarily
cheap services should either shell out more money for a
guaranteed reliable service, or accept the fact that they are
getting what they pay for. You buy a cheap PC, you will probably
deal with more downtime than if you purchase an expensive and
well supported PC. It's the way the world works.

[kieranmullen]

Alternatives: Gizmoproject.com

http://Gizmoproject.com is a good alternative. It doesn't rob you of computing and network resources like skype does. (Skype uses p2p when it can to router other calls through your computer. Google more info on it) Being that gizmo doesnt do it this way AND they dont have big funds like ebay to give away loss leaders like unlimtied call out for $30 a year, call out costs are billed per minute, but with .01 a minute it isnt a big deal.


KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com

[citizencontact]

SIP calls: open, non-proprietary network (inc. Gizmoproject.com)

SIP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol)
provides the best way for VOIP to work currently as it is completely open, several vendors produce phones for it, though mainly for large businesses. Unlike Skype, which is a closed network, there are many SIP phone networks that hook into each other using an email address similar protocol as well as reach out to the old phone system. If a single network goes down, it effects just a small fraction of the SIP world. By depending on a closed system like Skype with its singular directory system (as opposed to DNS, SIP and other open networking directory standards) there is essentially a single point/network of failure. Plus with SIP, as with email, there are hundreds of clients made by hundreds of independent companies. Skype may be successful, it may even get better because of this interruption, but essentially it is an impediment to an open and vibrant technology.

[keith.r.benedict]

Uh, yeah, it's a big deal

Well, it's at least as big of a deal as the RIM outage a few months back and that was all over CNET's front page. The Skype outage seems to be buried.

My company is completely virtual. We have developers throughout the US and Europe. Skype is the backbone of our communication. We've been fortunate that during this time there haven't been any major emergencies with the company that required the services of anybody else in the company. In an emergency, I use Skype to determine who is still working--who I can contact to fix problems that I'm unable to fix.

Oh, and as of 21:45 GMT, still no Skype. It's been nearly 36 hours without Skype. Two months ago I nearly dumped Vonage for Skype. Boy am I glad I didn't!

[The_Decider]

Shortsighted

Any company that relies on what is more or less a free service for its communication gets what it deserves when that very low cost service goes down.

The sooner people accept responsibility for not forking out for guaranteed reliability, the sooner they can move on.

I hope most of these boneheaded companies go under because of this, they do not deserve to be in business.

[andyross]

It's still not working

It's still not working for me. Sometimes it connects for a minute or two, but most of the time it's still 'connecting.'

[kagbeni94]

Sykpe side effect & thoughts on Vonage

I have Skype on my computer in the office and during
yesterday's outage the spinning icon in the system tray used up
so many sessions with outgoing traffic that I could not access
the internet at all. I could still use Outlook and ping
intermittently to the outside world, but the persistent attempts
by the Skype software to connect to Skype's servers was such a
huge drain on my system resources. It wasn't until after
spending time on the phone with my DSL provider, my network
manager and my systems people all of whom were concerned
that I might have an agent or bot of some sort on my computer
that we tried disabling Skype and all of a sudden my sessions
dropped from over 300 to sub 100 and all was well with the
world and I could access the internet. Today, when I saw that
Skype was still trying to connect when I started up my computer
and I was again unable to access the internet, I simply disabled
it and was free to surf to my hearts content. I know a couple of
others who have told me they had similar issues but were not
able to work out why they couldn't access a web page yet were
able to receive email. I think it is something to do with the
consistency of the packet transfers, although I'm not a tech.

As a final note, I've been a Vonage customer at home for almost
3 years now and with the exception of the first couple of months
have never had a problem. The service is impeccable - perhaps
people try to tweak it and don't give it enough bandwidth, or
they are using it with connections that are too slow. While it
can't match Skype for price, for my $25 a month it is infinitely
superior for home use.

[dmcg9]

Interesting Observation

I find your comment about Skype's huge drain on your computer's
resources interesting as I have a friend who experiences the same
thing every time we use Skype to talk. It's like it just takes over his
HD and makes other programs labour incredibly hard to keep up.
Skype is the only program that affects his system this way.

[voipmeister]

Skype advertises on CNET, what did you expect?

Some article dogging them for their incompetencies? An article
pointing out that they provide every feature of a phone company
but dont want to be considered a "replacement service" because
then they would have to pay taxes and abide by E911 laws?

Massive massive catastrophe happens on their system
highlighting the core reason that p2p is less reliable than a
hosted solution.

They immediately pull out the PR machine and have some cnet
blogger write up a "it doesnt matter dude" article.

[jelloburn]

Oh please...

You're right, the sky is falling Chicken Little. Not to mention that
the government is working with aliens to read our minds.

Everything is a huge conspiracy...

[Fat Drunk and Stupid]

Would it be a big deal if AT&T went down?

If you buy a phone number from Skype and give it out as your primary phone number then you rely on that service just as much as you rely on AT&T (or other major carrier) for your landline phone.

Two days of spotty service isn't enough to make me want to drop Skype but it's unbelievable that anyone could write or publish an article that claims this kind of service outage isn't a big deal.

[Leria]

It isn't a big deal

An outage like this isn't a big deal. When AT&T was first going across the United States, it was known to have MONTH-long outages. Skype has only been around for about..... 2 years, I believe? They are doing pretty damn good if they only have this LITTLE bit of outage in that period of time, considering they are still just starting their business.

[Leria]

It isn't a big deal

An outage like this isn't a big deal. When AT&T was first going across the United States, it was known to have MONTH-long outages. Skype has only been around for about..... 2 years, I believe? They are doing pretty damn good if they only have this LITTLE bit of outage in that period of time, considering

[mikefj40]

Yeah, big indeed

It's a big deal if you think about the implications for other peer to peer apps. I'm also disappointed that Skype has been less than forthcoming about what has gone wrong. Why do we have to wait until Monday to make their excuses?

http://mike-mcgrath.wordpress.com/2007/08/18/skype-says-im-back/
http://mike-mcgrath.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/skypeless-certainly-and-helpless-almost/

[jowewo]

A big deal or "quick to go" frustration

Skype is a great piece of software. From chat to payment, from
sharing to PC2PC/regular phone communication from fun to
work, it has become an amazing tool without losing its ease to
use and it's stability. What a frustration when we were not able
to use it for 24 hours! But at the same time, let's look at the big
picture. Comcast or AT&T users are known to have service
interruption very frequently: do we hear about the issue then?
No! Any computer/web-based system is bound to run into a
problem once in a while. Using Skype for over 4 years, this is
the first time we encounter a "major" outage. Breeze in/breeze
out... Everything is going to be OK. I personally refuse to follow
those who want to scare us away. I will continue to use Skype
with confidence and will always prefer it over M$N, Yahoo and
other "junked-with-ad" messengers... Skype is good for you...
Give it a shot!