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Alternatives to Skype?

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  1. #11

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    GTalk in Gmail is near Skype quality and free, you can make calls from within the browser window, no additional app required.

    Either side can setup a free Gmail account and can use audio or video.

    Last edited by emx; 03-05-2013 at 01:32 PM.

  2. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by pin:
    Google hangouts?
    Googled it, installed it, now I just have to test it. My colleague in Thailand is not very IT-aware so it didn't work the first time!

    Thank - we use Google Apps for our email, but I had not seen this before.

  3. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by emx:
    GTalk in Gmail is near Skype quality and free, you can make calls from within the browser window, no additional app required.

    Either side can setup a free Gmail account and can use audio or video.
    I got rather confused by how gtalk compare with google hangouts! Is gtalk just for a single conversation while google hangouts for conference calls?

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stoob:
    Are you getting the same quality regardless of who you call?

    i.e. could it be a bandwidth issue at the receiver's end?
    I got my staff to investigate the bandwidth at the other end - apparently it's excellent. (of course, I cannot go to my staff's home to check!) . That was the first thing we tried

    I wonder more whether it's more of a "country bandwidth" issue.

  5. #15

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    Gtalk and Google hangout will probably merge soon as part of Google babel.


  6. #16

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    Naver line


  7. #17

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    It doesn't help that a lot of internet offerings are asymmetric.


  8. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by Stoob:
    It doesn't help that a lot of internet offerings are asymmetric.
    What does that mean?

  9. #19

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    It means that many internet connections have a much higher download speed (the one always quoted) than upload speed. For example, an 8Mbps ADSL connection normally has an upload speed of 640kbps.

    Having said that, 640kbps is still an order of magnitude better than needed for a voice call, so that may not be the issue.

    In Thailand I suspect the issue may be latency outside the bounds with which Skype's transport mechanism can deal with.


  10. #20

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    I don't think it's a matter of simple bandwidth or symmetric/asymmetric lines. I mean, what does a compressed voice call take these days- 16 or 64k? More important is probably consistent latency (ping times) between the two callers.

    I am most certainly not a voice/networks guy, but my first troubleshooting step would be a simple continuous ping to a known server in Thailand. If you get really variable or really high (300ms+) figures, then it's down to the quality of the connection.