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More than 110 million downloads and 2 billion minutes of phone conversations later, Zennström has shown that he wasn't kidding. But Skype's success has led to perhaps the most difficult chapter yet for the Luxemburg-based company. It now faces mounting concerns over a lack of customer service and a growing backlash by utility regulators as it hunts for new revenue opportunities. Zennström spoke to CNET.News.com about these and other issues earlier this week.
Q: There are a lot of customer complaints about SkypeIn, where you get inbound calls from any phone, and SkypeOut, which is used to call any phone. Is there a problem with it?Zennström: One thing you have to bear in mind is that the telephone system has been around for 135 years; Skype's been around for 20 months. We are going through all kinds of improvements.
But clearly something is wrong. Customers are fuming about dropped or badly distorted calls. Any changes in the offing?
Zennström: There actually are people using SkypeIn that say it's better than SkypeOut. We are using a new software version for SkypeIn, which we will be gradually introducing into SkypeOut. We are continuously working on it.
Is that going to solve the problem?
Zennström: We're also adding more carrier partners in order to terminate more calls to traditional phones. That will help. We are also developing lots of new ways to correct errors in the traffic. I think we will continue to see improvements in quality.
These are quality of service problems Skype can address. But Skype can't control the quality of someone's broadband connection, which has a direct impact on Skype calls.
Zennström: We've identified a list of things we can do. But in cases where people are on a badly congested Internet network, that will have an impact on quality. But you're starting to see multi-megabit, per-second connections. In many places, Sweden for example, you can buy a 24mbps line here, and you'll start seeing that in a lot more places.
Your proprietary software has come under fire from those Net phone interests advocating open-source Session Initiation Protocol. What's Skype's SIP stance now?
Zennström: We've been using SIP to interconnect SkypeIn and SkypeOut calls to the (traditional) public switched telephone network (PSTN) since July. Second to Yahoo Broadband in Japan, we're probably one of largest SIP traffic generators. But doing
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call from Germany to Belarus and quality is
considerably much better.
I think in your case, you are hitting the latencies
problems: most of the locations in Europe I have tried
has terribly high latencies when connection goes to
Japan (primary interest), Oceania & Australia. Half
second to second delays seems norm of life. So I
expect that your latencies from Australia to Europe will
be high as well.
This is where Internet providers save money: Asia<-
>Europe traffic is very limited - different languages/
cultures - so channels are very narrow and thin. And
Australia - I believe - belong geographically to Asia.
which by definition is shared. Most VoIP vendors
do not own the network that they provide services
over. Skype is simply a proprietary protocol
running on the IP network which uses a P2P model.
This actually allows for better sound quality.
Ofcourse it requires peers in order to function,
but this is good in my opinion as the network is
not controlled centrally. It is also encrypted, which
is far better then the other VoIP vendors. Once
they have a larger base of POTS providers offering
skype relays, the sound for skype to pots and pots
to skype will improve. Skype to Skype will always
be best in terms of sound quality and security.
With the introduction of Skypeln, Skype is hitting the market with two major disruptive features:
1- they have already enabled the ability for a single (mobile) phone unit (in this case, a pocket PC running Skype) to be on the receiving end of multiple international phone numbers.
2- In many cases, they have effectively made incoming roaming free, another disruptive feature.
As an example, I have a US and French number that I use on my trips to Romania free of any roaming charges. And by the way, my connections have always been pretty good!
If anything is true, the telco should really pay attention; there are bundles of new features and services they would need to roll out to compete effectively. The next couple of years will be very interesting for the least. Cant wait!
Works well for first 5 minutes then the problem starts , there is staggering of voice and sometimes the voice is played faster then the speed of speaking.Even with the best network speeed. Skype provides good deal at the moment on landline but calls to mobile phone are way costlier atleast for rates to Switzerland.Need improvement in quality.
My main concern with Skype is the lack of SIP interconnectivity. As a corporate IT guy reading about various Open Source PBX projects, its sad to think that Skype wont be able to fit in somewhere.
In short, some cross investment between GPS, Cellular, and VOIP businesses would be a giant leap toward relieving the consumer of the stranglehold of the antiquated POTS.