Comments on: Study: Net telephony quality worsening

If you're disappointed with the quality of Internet calling, you're not alone. A new study shows it's getting worse.

[JoeCrow]

$10 Says the Company is on AT&T's Payroll

I can't speak for everyone, but my VoIP via Skype has improved substantially in the last year to the point I use it daily ... so that is one data point that is falsification for the guys study.

I'll bet someone $10 that the company is on AT&T's payroll trying to kill Net Neutrality and this is little more than FUD.

If anything, I've seen VoIP and network response times increase at a surprising extent.

But not as much as I'd like. We gave the telcos $200 billion worth of our tax money and deregulation in late 90s in exchange for their promise to run fiber to every house.

They contracted to it and failed to deliver.

What the hell did they do with all that money we ALREADY gave them anyway?

[heritagejd]

VOIP

Hey Joe, Skype uses tech that is shared, sooner than later, it will catch up with them and your quality will deminish. They don't have dedicated bandwidth. Your arguement is kind of all wet, you got snookered.

[maxwis]

Call Quality Varies A Lot

Within the past few months of using Skype I have found that call quality from Skype to a regular telephone (SkypeOut) is quite good -- at least as good as a cell phone and frequently better. On the other hand, when I use Skype to call a friend who is also on Skype (computer to computer) the quality is not so good. This may be due to problems on my friend's side, but there is nothing I can do about that. I have given up trying to use Yahoo Messenger voice chat, the quality is just too poor. As a point of reference, I just ran a TestYourVoIP to San Jose and got a score of 4 over a 2.5 Mbps AT&T DSL line.

[uncjigga]

The Internet is a series of tubes...

And...ah..uh..ah..all these...uhh..internets...are there for the consumer. And if...uh...anyone wants to...uh...use it for MASSIVE commercial purposes..uh...you have to charge extra money ahh...for services over the internets...and so you can order 10 movies delivered free...streaming over the internet...but then your personal internet..uhh..gets tangled up with all those..uhh..commercial needs...and...uh...I didn't get my internet till this morning.

THE INTERNET IS NOT A DUMP TRUCK!

[ogman]

I got to agree...

This sounds like a lot of FUD. My Vonage service works fine and sounds great. The only people who I've heard of having problems are those trying to get Vonage over a Comcast line. Apparently Comcast degrades the signal, hoping that customers will switch to their own service looking for improvement.

[Mallardd]

The source of the problem.

Clogged pipes :)

[heritagejd]

Source

Mallardd-

Exactumundo, it's all in the last mile:-)

[Maccess]

YouTube, Bittorrent, and more

Make the Internet eat all you can, and there will be those who will do so. Blame the reduced quality of net telephony on those shoving gigabyte files through the system.

[MikeCerm]

Don't restrict, build more lanes!

The answer is that the telco's and ISP need to increase their bandwidth capacity. Data "prioritization" is bad, and unfair. How would you feel if, instead of car-pool (HOV) lanes, they had lanes that only rich people could drive in? Would you consider that a reasonable cure for your bumper-to-bumper commute?

No, the answer is that they need to add more lanes to the "information super-highway", not dictate who can and can't drive in the lanes that already exist. Elsewhere in the world, bandwidth is not a problem. Only here in the US, where we let the duopolized "free market" screw us. If there was legitimate competition, like in Europe, this wouldn't be a problem. If the government would view the internet as something beneficial to all citizens and help build better infrastructure, this wouldn't be a problem.

[MikeCerm]

Don't restrict, build more lanes!

The answer is that the telco's and ISP need to increase their bandwidth capacity. Data "prioritization" is bad, and unfair. How would you feel if, instead of car-pool (HOV) lanes, they had lanes that only rich people could drive in? Would you consider that a reasonable cure for your bumper-to-bumper commute?

No, the answer is that they need to add more lanes to the "information super-highway", not dictate who can and can't drive in the lanes that already exist. Elsewhere in the world, bandwidth is not a problem. Only here in the US, where we let the duopolized "free market" screw us. If there was legitimate competition, like in Europe, this wouldn't be a problem. If the government would view the internet as something beneficial to all citizens and help build better infrastructure, rather than let a few private companies set limits on supply (so they can charge more for the scarcity), this wouldn't be a problem.

[kieranmullen]

Prioritizing Traffic

Is fine and it can be done already, but will be made easier with IPV6. There is no need for additional services to pay for.