Skype problems

Hi All

I'm new here and really need some advice on why my Skype connection with my Mum is so poor.

Basically, when I Skype my Mum, it is consistently useless! My Mum can Skype other people OK and so can I, but when we Skype each other, it's often unusable. I was wondering if our two ISPs were to blame - mine is Sky, my Mum's is the Post Office. Is it possible that between them they add up to particularly poor bandwidth? Both are setups are wireless, although we're just waiting for some fancy connector things to make ours hard-wired (router can't be nearer PC).

Having read some other posts here, I checked my router stats:

ROUTER STATISTICS

System Up Time: 159:05:34
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN MER 5268863 3499549 0 78 21 80:50:49
LAN Down 0 0 0 0 0 159:05:35
WLAN Up 4657286 6693580 0 7350 1146 159:05:11
Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 10846 kbps 1109 kbps
Line Attenuation 37.5 dB 23.3 dB
Noise Margin 6.1 dB 7.8 dB

Any suggestions as to how to improve the Skype connection?

Cheers
Clare

As you're using wifi, it will be the wifi that's causing you problems. I guess you're awaiting homeplugs to give you a wired connection which will help.

You could try running a speedtest over wifi which may give you an insight into the problem - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

As you're using wifi, it will be the wifi that's causing you problems. I guess you're awaiting homeplugs to give you a wired connection which will help.

You could try running a speedtest over wifi which may give you an insight into the problem - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html

Thanks Batboy.

I'm sure the hard-wiring will make a huge difference. Do you think it's better with some people than others because of 2 poor wireless speeds?

Edit: just checked the download speed and it's 2.46Mps, whic is shocking, isn't it?
Speedtest.net says 4.4Mps, why the discrepancy?

Edited by deleted (Sun 17-Mar-13 11:34:28)

Yes, shocking. To get good wifi speeds, you really need to be using wireless-N. I'm sure with both of you on wifi, skype will be worse than if both of you were wired.

Ah, I think you've maybe found the problem for me! The wireless is definitely an issue on the PC. I've used Speedtest.net as a comparison as I have it on my phone.

PC download speed: 4.40Mbs
Android phone speed: 9.03Mbs

Looks like our cheap wireless adaptor is sucking our speed Glad we ordered those adaptors now! Hopefully, they'll be here soon and they'll save the day.

Cheers
Clare

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Yes, shocking. To get good wifi speeds, you really need to be using wireless-N. I'm sure with both of you on wifi, skype will be worse than if both of you were wired.

Thanks. Hopefully, with just one of us wired, it'll make enough difference!

Your Mum's ADSL connection is almost certainly much slower than yours as well. As far as I know the Post Office still use ADSL not ADSL2+.

Good luck with the Homeplugs though . On a lighter note - as you are both OK using Skype with no problem to other people, maybe it's just the amount the two of you try to say at the same time .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

On a lighter note - as you are both OK using Skype with no problem to other people, maybe it's just the amount the two of you try to say at the same time .

Ha ha, it's like you know us