Skype Down?
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Good point, loose rivets. I remember when making even a domestic long distance call, let alone an international, was a big deal and you did it with sweating palms and one eye on the second hand!
Roll on the years, I don't even think of the cost, it's such an insignificant portion of outgoings it's not worth a thought. In our household, 95% of our telephone traffic is international and we're talking several hours daily (which is better than having mother-in-law here!)
Roll on the years, I don't even think of the cost, it's such an insignificant portion of outgoings it's not worth a thought. In our household, 95% of our telephone traffic is international and we're talking several hours daily (which is better than having mother-in-law here!)
Ah yes - the pre-STD days when you would ring 0 for the operator, then ask for a 'trunk call' to somewhere beyond the local exchange. A few minutes later, he/she would call back and put you through...
Only a few years ago, UK inland calls were distance based - and it was cheaper to ring 'abroad' after 2000 during the week.
Remember the joy of the 'pips'..
?
Or 'party lines' which you had to share with a neighbour?
I see from my records that, in 1991 my first cellphone (in the car) cost me £27 per month subscription and that peak time calls cost 25p per minute outside London or 33p per minute inside....
Even in 1985, virtually no-one had a home 'answering machine' - and home fax machines were unheard of!
People who've never had to struggle with shoving coins into a GPO public callbox and who can now call world-wide from a 3G phone for peanuts should be very grateful!
Skype is another excellent innovatiion, but it still has some limitations. It now seems to be fully restored; one hopes that most Skype engineering work will concentrate on reliability and quality issues rather than geeky gimmicks.
Only a few years ago, UK inland calls were distance based - and it was cheaper to ring 'abroad' after 2000 during the week.
Remember the joy of the 'pips'..
?Or 'party lines' which you had to share with a neighbour?
I see from my records that, in 1991 my first cellphone (in the car) cost me £27 per month subscription and that peak time calls cost 25p per minute outside London or 33p per minute inside....
Even in 1985, virtually no-one had a home 'answering machine' - and home fax machines were unheard of!
People who've never had to struggle with shoving coins into a GPO public callbox and who can now call world-wide from a 3G phone for peanuts should be very grateful!
Skype is another excellent innovatiion, but it still has some limitations. It now seems to be fully restored; one hopes that most Skype engineering work will concentrate on reliability and quality issues rather than geeky gimmicks.
Join Date: Nov 2000
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Sometimes, things that are too good to be true, really are
It took several emails and one landlane call to get the Skype call set up, and then it was very difficult to hear what was going on compared to a normal landline teleconference. Mostly due to the voice of the person two desks away reaching me through the air about a second before it appeared on the headphones ... yet bizarrely there seemed to be no delay on the Indian leg of the call!
Landline would have been cheaper. Yes it would still have taken some emails to set the call up, but the better quality resulting in less time wasted would have paid the call charges.
This was my second attempt to talk to someone via Skype. On the first attempt the voice was so distorted in both directions, only about one syllable in three being audible, that a conversation was impossible, so we gave up and conducted the business by landline and email. I know which I'll try first next time.
I have a dedicated Skype phone which plugs into the router, no computer required. Therefore I always appear online to anyone who wants to Skype me, Skype out calls to landlines are usually good quality but obviously depend on the speed of your internet connection.
Also I have the Skype app on my Iphone which saved me quite a bit of money during a recent trip when calling home(to the Skype phone) using the hotels free WiFi. Call quality was perfectly acceptable.
Also I have the Skype app on my Iphone which saved me quite a bit of money during a recent trip when calling home(to the Skype phone) using the hotels free WiFi. Call quality was perfectly acceptable.
The old RAF telephone system (before the demise of local operators) was often highly amusing... You could be connected to Bawtry or Bawdsey when you wanted Brawdy, or Llanbedr instead of Lampeter.....
In the good old days at RAF Brawdy (1975-6), the phones didn't even have dials. You just picked up the phone and some aged Druid connected you to the appropriate extension. If said Druid didn't answer quickly and you rattled the cradle, an aggrieved voice would suddenly ask "Are you flashin'?" - it seems that this was the way to signal an emergency!
Cross-country calls involved a series of progressively fainter old biddies chatting to eachother ("Central...click, click, Rothwell Haigh please, dear...click, click...Machrihanish please....click, click...."Hullooo, RAF Machrihanish here...."), interspersed with the occasional screech of "ARE YOU WORKING??!!" if you dared to pause for thought in mid-call!
A mate using this system once got annoyed when it seemingly went dead "Ah f*ck it, the bastard telephone's gone t*ts up. Bolleaux!" he muttered to no-one in particular, only to be chastised by some vexed harpy who retorted "There's no call for language like that, young man, I'm trying to connect you!".
The 'Dial-a-mate' system worked fine in the 80s and 90s. But getting rid of station operators in favour of failed burger-flippers at call centres proved a total disaster.
Thank heavens for cellphones!
In the good old days at RAF Brawdy (1975-6), the phones didn't even have dials. You just picked up the phone and some aged Druid connected you to the appropriate extension. If said Druid didn't answer quickly and you rattled the cradle, an aggrieved voice would suddenly ask "Are you flashin'?" - it seems that this was the way to signal an emergency!
Cross-country calls involved a series of progressively fainter old biddies chatting to eachother ("Central...click, click, Rothwell Haigh please, dear...click, click...Machrihanish please....click, click...."Hullooo, RAF Machrihanish here...."), interspersed with the occasional screech of "ARE YOU WORKING??!!" if you dared to pause for thought in mid-call!
A mate using this system once got annoyed when it seemingly went dead "Ah f*ck it, the bastard telephone's gone t*ts up. Bolleaux!" he muttered to no-one in particular, only to be chastised by some vexed harpy who retorted "There's no call for language like that, young man, I'm trying to connect you!".
The 'Dial-a-mate' system worked fine in the 80s and 90s. But getting rid of station operators in favour of failed burger-flippers at call centres proved a total disaster.
Thank heavens for cellphones!
Per Ardua ad Astraeus
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I can only assume, Gert,that your internet connection was poor or the Skype system was already on the 'way down'. Apart from the odd 'duplex' conversation problem on a slow connection at home I have had excellent call quality from hotels in 'forrin parts'.
Mind you, I've never Skype'd someone 'two desks away'
Mind you, I've never Skype'd someone 'two desks away'
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Gertrude's experience and opinion of Skype is consistent with my own. My line download speed is 5-6 Mb and I have never had better than mediocre call quality on Skype, with dropouts. I realise that this could be due to poor line quality/speed at the terminating end of the calls, but I have tested it by calling people who have equal or better downolad speeds and the quality has still not been acceptable.
Skype is cheap, and like most cheap things, not as good as good as a more expensive service. As the difference is marginal, I prefer to pay for convenience and quality.
On a related topic, I remember many years ago, as a spotty lovestruck teenager, calling a girl I'd met on a skiing holiday in the Tirol. She lived in a remote village on the west coast of Ireland. I called our local operator and asked for Ballyclondroid (or whatever it was) 14, she called Dublin, who called Limerick, who called ..... and eventually got through to Ballyclondroid, asked for number 14, and I heard the broad Irish accent coming back down the line : "You'll be wanting the O'Reilly's then, they're down at the O'Connors for lunch, I'll put you through there, it's number 18."
And on yet another note, you don't have to be a teenager to be lovestruck!
Skype is cheap, and like most cheap things, not as good as good as a more expensive service. As the difference is marginal, I prefer to pay for convenience and quality.
On a related topic, I remember many years ago, as a spotty lovestruck teenager, calling a girl I'd met on a skiing holiday in the Tirol. She lived in a remote village on the west coast of Ireland. I called our local operator and asked for Ballyclondroid (or whatever it was) 14, she called Dublin, who called Limerick, who called ..... and eventually got through to Ballyclondroid, asked for number 14, and I heard the broad Irish accent coming back down the line : "You'll be wanting the O'Reilly's then, they're down at the O'Connors for lunch, I'll put you through there, it's number 18."
And on yet another note, you don't have to be a teenager to be lovestruck!
And on yet another note, you don't have to be a teenager to be lovestruck!
Skype works well for me, btw.
Psychophysiological entity
While down memory lane:
Hee, hee...not always. I've just remembered going to a red box and picking up the receiver to ask for the number of a girl in London that I was totally besotted with. The number was repeated rather mechanically by a young female voice, then suddenly she said. "Is that you Rivets?" Well, something like that.
I was numbed. The tall blond operator and I were having an affair. I can't remember what I did, but I'm sure I didn't make the call.
As an aside. She was in an ordinary looking house next to the post office. Outside was a pair of red boxes. The local barber was a funny little fellow, liked a bit of smut while he was cutting one's hair. He also liked to talk dirty to the female operators. One night, one of them simply opened the blinds and saw him drooling into the phone. He went before the magistrates, which in a small town was probably bad enough, but he also had a HUGE wife, who had been seriously humiliated. He was a tad more subdued after that.
You just picked up the phone and some aged Druid connected you to the appropriate extension.
Hee, hee...not always. I've just remembered going to a red box and picking up the receiver to ask for the number of a girl in London that I was totally besotted with. The number was repeated rather mechanically by a young female voice, then suddenly she said. "Is that you Rivets?" Well, something like that.
I was numbed. The tall blond operator and I were having an affair. I can't remember what I did, but I'm sure I didn't make the call.
As an aside. She was in an ordinary looking house next to the post office. Outside was a pair of red boxes. The local barber was a funny little fellow, liked a bit of smut while he was cutting one's hair. He also liked to talk dirty to the female operators. One night, one of them simply opened the blinds and saw him drooling into the phone. He went before the magistrates, which in a small town was probably bad enough, but he also had a HUGE wife, who had been seriously humiliated. He was a tad more subdued after that.
