Sketchy Skype Calls & Bad Connections..

[bluefinch604]

Hello fellow LDR-ers. So, I chatted with him today (he Skyped me). I feel a bit disappointed because we had an awful connection. He doesn't have Internet fully set up yet and he was using some sketchy modem. I was in a noisy coffee shop and my web cam wasn't working, grrrr!!! Do you guys find that Skype is usually ok to chat on? Can you hear your SO ok on there??? I'm wondering why we had such a bad connection and I'm hoping the quality improves so I can chat with him without saying "huh?! every 2 minutes... Didn't really make for the best conversation... a bit disappointing but oh well, I'm sure we'll find out what works soon enough... We both can't really afford to make calls on our cell phones - it's 30 cents per minute, yikes! Have any of you been in this situation before? What have you found works the best for staying in touch???

[bluefinch604]

Also, on another note, I'm not able to post any letters to him because the mail service in Egypt is sketchy - i.e. it may not get to him... I feel so frustrated! Any tips? My afternoon is his evening. Pretty much the only time that we can spend together is in the afternoon, as his work schedule is really packed when he's away. Any tips on the best way to keep in touch and feel close given our circumstances?

[JoMarie]

In my experience Skype is great. I have never had any troubles but it could have been the modems or more so a connection problem on his end. If you can't send him mail you can still write letters and save them for him. Also you can email, use smilebox etc to express your feelings and tell him how much you miss him. Hope this helps.

[garnet]

Skype is crap. We can't do it PC to Mac, Mac to Mac, day, night, EVER. The video sucks, the sound sucks, the calls drop. I'm beyond pissed off at this point. We used free google talk video chat for a while, but now that isn't working either. We also can't afford phone calls. Its frustrating, its not helping our relationship, and like, add a long string of swearing here.

[Yin Yang]

Usually bad skype connection has to do with bad internet connection at either side. my bf and I use skype every day. there are days when it's perfect and then there are days when it just sucks, but we're mostly satisfied. the video is not of such a great quality, but sound is always good, and we can talk for hours.
I think you both need to figure out your connections. I don't think skype, especially with the camera on, will work with a dial up, or connection slower than cable. That would be very painful.

[Mio]

We used Skype always. Yes, some days it was crappy, so days perfect. It all depends on the connection. Probably at the coffee shop you were the internet was a bit slow, as normally in those place so many people use the same server! I skyped one time from Starbucks and it was regular. And well, I don't know, but maybe in Egypt the lines are regular too? I have never been there so I don't know about the technology there. But keep it there, you'll see that it will go good with the video chat! I heard that camfrog is good, maybe you can check it out!

[folclor]

I don't like using skype for video chatting because the voice rarely syncs up with the video. As for pure voice chatting, it's fine, but his mic seems to be more sensitive when we use something like Skype as opposed to MSN. Though MSN has problems, I'd suggest trying that instead.

[William]

We use Skype; we once had a 4-hour video call without any issues whatsoever. We're just lucky that we both have good connections.

If you want to test the quality (not speed) of your connection, try www.pingtest.net

[Bluestars]

My SO and I tried using Skype several times, but eventually we gave up after much frustration because the quality and sound was horrible and the video would freeze up. The main problem was that we would get a lot of background noise--like white static--so that we could not hear each other talk. I think that may have to do with the quality of my speakers, but not quite sure. It wasn't worth any of the hassle.

Instead, we use Google Video Chat. For the most part, it works pretty well. Some days it works better than others. Usually, the screen will freeze up once or twice and we will have to start the chat over again, but overall, that isn't a big deal.

I suggest just trying different platforms and seeing which ones work for you. Also, if your connection isn't strong enough for video chat, maybe you could just try regular voice chat without the video? That might help conserve bandwidth.

[Veiled_Dreamer]

My ex-SO and I used to use MSN. Am I the only one that never tried Skype? Haha. MSN worked for me always, good for chatting definitely. The video picture itself is small in resolution but it's clear 90% of the time.

[Tanja]

Andy and I combine MSN and Skype for video chatting because MSN has a great video quality and Skype works better with audio than MSN - sometimes they freeze or the quality is bad but overall it works just fine and we do it almost everyday.

[So_Far_Away]

I use Skype to talk to my dad (my parents are LD too lol) as he's a pilot and goes all over the place. The connection varies loads, but we can usually manage a voice conversation even if the video isnt good, and there's always just using it for IMing. It helps if you use it at not busy times, and depends on the countries too, although we've never found Egypt to be a problem... SaudiArabia is a nightmare for Skype lol!

[bluefinch604]

Thanks guys! This is helpful. I guess it will take some time and fiddling around to see what works for us. I think that his connection in Egypt is probably dicey. The Skype to cell phone call wasn't bad - we tried that. I was excited at the idea of seeing his face, so I will continue to try Skype/other video MSGing services to see what works. We are getting into the groove of things. Also frustrating... sometimes my text messages don't arrive! I'm sure we'll get the hang of it after a while. Thanks for your advice everyone!

[Alisz]

I'm going to pipe in here and suggest maybe looking into international phone cards? Some of them have decent rates and can cost around $10-20. I used to use them a lot for calls before voice chatting online was more widely used and more stable.

We used to use Ventrillo which had decent quality, but was costly. Also, not a lot of privicy since it was shared with the guild. ^^;; Even if we were in another room we'd get people msging wondering what we were doing. :/ Tried MSN, but it's a resource hog. Tried GTalk (Google) which did a pretty decent job. Only thing we found out was sometimes it'd cut my mic off or the quality would go down for no apparent reason. But the video part of it is awesome. We switched to Skype and have been using that ever since with good results. Sometimes our voice quality will go to shit, but only if we're downloading something. So, no torrenting while talking. ^^;; We've had pretty good framerates for the video too and it doesn't seem to use too many resources. At least I don't notice it on my end. We're always on the lookout for better ways to communicate, but as of now Skype seems to be the best.

[Thad]

We've spent nearly entire weekends on Skype, and yes at times the connections were crappy. Overall, though its been a great way to communicate. There is just something about seeing your SO's face that makes the conversation that much better.

Keep in mind its only one option, so if it doesn't work then keep on trying other things to you find what works for you!