Telepocalypse

To be fair to poor old Skype (They've been getting a bashing lately), they're actually trying their best on this one. With nearly any other program, you two wouldn't be able to connect to each other at all. You're both firewalled, so the relay's been enlisted to bridge the gap. Since the relay is some poor kid on a 512/128 DSL connection, Skype kindly doesn't use all his bandwidth to transfer your file.

There's an easy fix: Ensure that one of you has a modern, UDP reply friendly router.

So yes, it's annoying, but it's not Skype's fault. Actually, it's kind of yours :)

Posted by: at June 2, 2007 01:21 AM

LOL. You reckon telcos can overcome the firewall/NAT problems?Actually if ISDN had taken off or even ATM pre-Internet days, it probably would work in a rock solid fashion. But then we would not have the Internet and the whole ecology around it!

Posted by: at June 3, 2007 11:17 PM

Just to relay a "happier" experience. I used Skype to transfer all my files from my old PC to my new one. I could not use my normal external hard drive were I back everything up to upload all the files as my new laptop uses Vista so no compatible drivers yet...

I am really grateful of Skype as it took 2 minutes to transfer files as large as 250 Meg. Yeap. 2 minutes, I could not even believe it myself. Having all the problems one has with Vista... and Skype saved the day. Fair to say, I have a Soho configuration, so no complex firewall, etc... in the way.

Posted by: at June 4, 2007 03:00 PM

Its time for P2P telephony to be sold by ISP.

ISPs like Verizon FiOS already carry big fiber optic pipes to homes. with a fat pipe and triple play service P2P telephony is just the next step.

Posted by: at June 11, 2007 08:45 PM