Sketchy Skype Calls & Bad Connections..

[Altessa]

My SO and I are regular users of Skype so I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

It's VERY dependent on your Internet. Skype is a bandwidth hog! Like the others said, there are good days, and there are bad days. If he's at uni, his video is good most of the time, but when he's back home, he shares it with his entire family so it sucks. Audio is usually fine though sometimes it goes wonky and I go "huh?" every few seconds. If that's the case then we just type until the audio clears up. I'm willing to put up with bad video, as long as I can see my SO, which is why we've persisted in using Skype. We would have used MSN instead but because he's using a Mac, his MSN can't do video calls.

[ettie]

What I have noticed about the good days bad days in skype is that the bad days are when the most users are logged in, I think I am not sure. For me it has been soooo bad some times, waiting all week and then the thing drops every 5 minutes!!!! aaaahhhhh!!! video is never good so we don´t really get to see each other very well, and sometimes we have to turn it off so we can talk.

Tanja´s idea is great! I will try it!

[Zapookie]

My SO and I only really talk on skype.. we'll buzz each other on MSN to see if neither of us is busy, then we'll chat on skype. Yes, it does depend on the speed of your . internet greatly. Video quality is not the best as it often goes fuzzy but it's not a huge problem. The main problem is with my cam, sometimes I freeze after 10 seconds from refreshing! arrrgh. Oh well. I"m not complaining

[MyHeartIsInABQ]

Skype usually works really well for me, but there are sometimes (when the weather where I am is bad, usually) that messes with the internet, and makes our connectivity poor. There are a few different chats that have video chatting options (but it seems like other people have already mentioned those! ) Good luck!

[Andy]

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.

We've been doing this for aaaaaaaaaaaages, it's a really great work-a-round we find

[Tanja]

Recently my Skype has been acting up and whenever we call, I always have to manually select which microphone to use (even though my laptop only has one :|) and even though I made the one I use the default there's a different one selected EVERY TIME I LOG IN! So I keep forgetting it and we have to always hang up and then call again after I've changed it, SO ANNOYING!

Anyway lol, besides that Skype has always worked fine.

[So_Far_Away]

Considering how awesome skype is.. It's pretty rubbish hehe.

[OneForTheRomance]

We've been using skype for quite a while. I'd say it works well 80% of the time for us. I have problems with my webcam freezing, but I'm pretty sure thats because I bought a cheap one, his works pretty much all the time. I find that most of the time when I have problems with skype it is because my computer is also doing other things at the time, or I don't have a very good connection. I can't imagine you get the best connection in a coffee shop and I don't know what the internet is like it Egypt, but its probably not skype itself that is the problem.

You say that you can't send letters because the postal service in Egypt is dodgy. If I were you, I'd give it a try still. Make a copy of the letter so you still have one in case it is lost. Or you can just use email, I have a special folder in my inbox that has every email he has ever sent me. Good luck!

[gflatsxo]

We usually use Skype, yes we have days where our computers freak out... but usually we have good days. We go from PC to Mac and it usually works. I'd try it again... it can work out if you have a good internet connection. OH! and sometimes we look a lil blurry, but that's alright. haha