Skype schematic sharing won't work

Ok, now that we've established the blame, we can precede towards a solution.

Good questions. It would be interesting to know how much of your upstream each of the other services are consuming. If Skype consumes less bandwidth than the others, then Skype is adapting to its limited bandwidth rather badly, while the others are using all the bandwidth they can grab.

On the other foot, it might be the same problem, but backwards. If Skype is grabbing all the outgoing bandwidth, with nothing reserved for ACK's, any other traffic (i.e. email, web, ftp) is going to appear constipated because the other end of the link is not getting timely ACK's. Skype might be failing to reserve some bandwidth (usually about 10%) for ACK's, while the others are doing it right.

It might also be a matter of QoS. You may have QoS configured in your router to give SIP packets, or whatever the other programs are using priority, while Skype has to fight it out with web and email traffic.

Ballmer is retiring not soon enough, and Gates is busy giving away his money. Today, Linux isn't the enemy. It's VMware.

For your amusement...

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

It must adapt badly because every time after canning the screen-share I get a notice that the Internet connection between me and the other engineer in insufficient. The typical dumbed-down message with zero meat in there.

Right now I don't have any tools to gauge that, other than the LED on the modem. It doesn't indicate a much different amount of data per second between, for example, GoToMeeting and Skype. Yet GoToMeeting works reliably and Skype doesn't.

The router doesn't have any QoS on there.

Aha, that's where the toilet paper shortage came from :-)

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

That's REALLY bad. That message is triggered when the network stack detects too many retransmissions, a symptom of a really constipated network route. Try: Start -> run -> cmd Right now I don't have any tools to gauge that, other than the LED on

Right click on the Windoze "Task Bar" (bottom of screen) and select "Task Manager". Click on the "Networking" tab. Not the best monitor but it should give you a clue as to the total network traffic.

For something better, try: etc... Google for "XP network traffic meter".

Buy a router with QoS. Enable QoS for Skype and SIP. I've been buying EA2700 (refurbished) routers with good results, after downgrading the supplied firmware to remove Cisco cloud services. $40.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Segments Received : 3466547 Segments Sent : 3065758 Segments Retransmitted: 2500

That doesn't look too bad to me.

I've used that sometimes but it doesn't really tell you how close things are to a limit on the DSL side. It only reads a percentage, whatever that means.

Hoping they are safe to download :-)

I am always careful when not knowing sites.

I think I'll first see if there is any way to increase the DSL speed here. I like my router because it has an LPT port which makes a 2nd laser printer available on the LAN as backup. Also, QoS probably won't help much because when I use Skype there is typically nobody else using the Internet here. So all the available bandwidth is available to Skype.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Take a look at DU Meter

Inexpensive, 30-day free trial period, and they've been around for years. Many more options than I routinely use.

This ain't your father's phone company. This is now the norm for residential phone service. Basically, they just "stitch" the wire into the sod and call it a day.

Such a quaint concept. I'll bet new subdivisions aren't buried. It's too expensive.

I highly doubt it.

What they want isn't necessarily what they get. Even the phone company doesn't require phone service, anymore. They still charge like it, though.

My satellite, alone, is $170/mo. DSL is another $50 (and mobile another $150 - going to $170, I think).

Exactly. "You gota pass it to find out how bad it really is."

It's cheaper without a contract, though you have to purchase the phone at "full price". Unless you live where there is only one company covering the area, it's quite a competitive market, now. Even where there is only one company (in my case, Verizon is the only one with towers within "sight"), there are many resellers that are substantially cheaper than the big-guys. I'll be seriously looking when my contract is up in January. I should be able to drop my bill to something under $100 (two smart phones).

That's a good deal. I'll have to take a look at it (don't know who they use as a carrier). 2.5GB is a lot (I have a 6GB plan but never use more than 1GB), unless you do streaming. A phone is too small for any of that stuff. A windows tablet, either 4G or WiFi thought the phone, would be better. Don't forget that computers suck for "real work" without a keyboard and mouse, though.

Virgin piggy back's on the Sprint network.

Cheers

Thanks. Their coverage map shows me right at the edge of "fair" and "off-network roaming". My Verizon coverage isn't anything to write home about but I don't want to be roaming (which is probably Verizon). Sounds like it's not an option for me.

I was seriously looking into Page Plus Cellular. They have an unlimited talk/text plan with 2GB data for $55. It's $70 with 5GB. Page Plus uses the Verizon network. Since Verizon is raising my price in the middle of the contract, I'll probably switch in January.

Thanks, Rich. But first I'll try to get more speed. Because even if I find Skype to have a bug they won't care one bit.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

0.3% is good enough and better than most for TCP. However, you should run Skype Echo Test or talk with someone using Skype first, and then check the UDP, not the TCP statistics. VoIP (and video) are both UDP, not TCP.

It's the percentage of your ethernet bandwidth. If you have a

100Mbit/sec ethernet connection to your router, and your DSL is running at 1.5Mbits/sec, you'll see a tiny 1.5% maximum display on the graph. This piece of brilliant design was brought to you by the wonderful folks at Microsoft.

I downloaded and ran the first and third on the list. I didn't want to deal with the CNET download manager and didn't try the 2nd one. No damage or pyrotechnics so far.

I do lots of image backups, so I'm far less careful. However, if I'm into paranoia, I fire up a Virtual Machine, and run the program in a sandbox. It works, I install it on the "real" XP partition.

Parallel ports are so 20th century. Kinda sounds like an old router, which may be the cause of the slow speeds. I've replaced various Netgear WGR614 series routers that seemed to slow down after about 5 years in service. No failures, just a slow down. No clue what that was about, but replacing the router with something more current made a big difference. You might also look into the benefits of ethernet connected laser printers. Incidentally, the typical complaint was not VoIP problems but rather problems streaming YouTube and Netflix videos.

It will help when you're transferring files at the same time that you're talking on Skype or reading something on the internet at the same time.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

[...]

I walk a lot through the neighborhoods, on account of two Labradors who'd get cranky otherwise. Then you see a lot of utility work. When the AT&T guys come they often show up with heavy duty equipment. The cable guys ... with a glorified circular saw and some sort of caulking gun.

There's a house going up across the valley, phone line is in a trench just like power, water and sewer. Out here they often use the same trench as the electric utility.

Yikes!

That was the same here when we got the service many years ago. Since there was (and still is) no contract I just gave it a shot and it worked anyways. I got 1-2 bars in the house and some dead spots. Now it improved, they must have placed a new tower. But I have no idea how the data speeds would be because I only buy basic talk service.

The funny thing is I occasionally had to hand my bone-simple Nokia 2115i to business folks who could not get a connection with their fancy smart phones.

This is their plan:

The nice thing is that there is no contract. Paid per month and that's it. It says unlimited but in the fine print there is a 2.5GB limit after which it slows down. Somewhere I have heard that it may not apply to 4G connections but I am not sure.

Isn't it illegal for them to raise prices if you've got a contract?

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

You live on a rock? They *certainly* don't here. The tool looks more like a motorized knife on a power washer cart. Slit the turf and pull the cable. If there is a trench open when they run the cable, they may drop it in but that's rare.

Sounds dangerous.

High, but that's what money is for.

The tower locations are shown in maps at fcc.gov. I don't have the links right now.

Probably a deprecated band.

Apparently IBM no longer has a special deal with them (only T-Mobile). I think they just figured it out. I have to check to see if my CPOE has a deal, Oh well, they'll lose a customer in six months (I've been with them since '00). I was thinking about going with a pay-as-you-go Verizon plan but not if they're going to raise my rate.

I think you mean the FCC ASR (Antenna Structure Registration). Only towers that are over 200ft or are near an airport need to be registered: Few cell towers are over 200ft.

More: Note that most cell sites are NOT registered with the FCC. If you believe the CTIA, there are 300,000 cell sites in the USA: However, that doesn't include repeaters, microcellular, DAS (distributed antenna systems), Small Cells, leaky coax in tunnels, water towers, church steeples, and many building mounted sites that do not involve a tower.

There are various groups that plot cell tower locations and post them to the internet. I did that 15 years ago for the Santa Cruz CA area: Data is from 2003 and has NOT been updated.

This should be more useful:

520,000 towers and 1.6 million "antennas".

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Git 'r done!

--
"Design is the reverse of analysis" 
                   (R.D. Middlebrook)

No, that's not it. This site had all cell towers listed, including church steeples. ;-) The information included latitude longitude, owner, network, and a bunch of other stuff.

Have to do that, but IIRC those numbers looked comparably good. I do not think it's any packet error issue. It is very repeatable. Skype with camera video works and the instant I switch to screen sharing it falls apart. So we have resorted to low-tech, sketching stuff on paper and holding it up to the camera. Then Skype doesn't fail. My Logitech camera isn't very good though, no dynamic range to write home about, very grainy picture because I am sitting with the back to a window.

Shazam! They were quite smart then.

[...]

Well, I tend to keep stuff that works regardless of how "modern" it is. This old HP-5L is around 15 years old but keeps on humming. So I need LPT.

Other than Skype everything runs fine. Skype has had other problems in the beginning but that got fixed when they released a newer version. The screen sharing never worked right.

I never do that unless someone requests it during the call, and then we all know it's going to come at the price of a rocky link. Until I can get faster Internet. The amazing thing is, GoToMeeting will then slow down the video but screen sharing keeps working. Because if implemented correctly that really doesn't need any bandwidth to speak of if a static drawing where only a cursor is moving. Same for the "etch-a-sketch" function.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Would be nice if you remembered that link. Because everything I tried before getting my cell phone was incomplete as Jeff said. Since the guys at the telco couldn't tell me either I literally drove down to where I remembered was a collection cell antennas on a pole. Couldn't say which companies were on there. Why don't they list that _on_ the pole? So I asked around until I found someone on the Sprint network to see if he gets full bars on that stretch of road. He did, so I knew I can make this work from my lab. Sounds pathetic, but that was the only way.

Now that I have a very portable spectrum analyzer (Signalhound) I could have found out immediately by driving there.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Yep. I have leaked data on tower locations from specific providers and from the county planning department, but that goes obsolete every few months. Cell sites are proposed, and dropped. Cell sites are moved. Cell sites are replaced by DAS systems. I can barely keep up with the local sites, and I suspect that the FCC would not be able to do the same.

The way it works is that FCC auctions the frequency and service by market area. The auction winner and service provider can put as many cell sites and they see fit to install within their authorized market area. No need to register or license each radio with the FCC. When cell sites were all located on towers, it was easy to find them in the FAA ASR list. Today, with small cellular being a popular way to circumvent local zoning hassles, the sites are no longer listed.

See the map on the wall at the right of the photo. That's the Cell One map for Santa Cruz circa about 1998.

That's a photo of the local cell sites circa 2002 from the county planning department. They refused to give me a copy, so I had to photograph it.

San Francisco cell sites, circa Jan 2010: More: I'm intentionally not including any "crowd sourcing" sites.

Many cell sites are sufficiently disguised that visual identification is impossible.

You can sorta guess by the frequencies that are being used. I found a chart of frequencies in use by various vendors by geographic area. I'll see if I can find it again.

Not required by FCC, PUC, or any other manufacturer of rules and regulations. Besides, a sign would be instantly vandalized.

Careful. Sprint and Verizon roam into each others territories. Full bars on one provider could be an indication of roaming into the other. Check the roaming indicator.

If you want more detail, dive into the "field test mode" for the cell phone to get the carrier and tower ID. There are also iphone and Android apps for getting this information. Mark the carrier and tower ID on the pole so I don't have to work so hard.

Nice. Which model and how do you like it?

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Ok, XP arrived 12 years ago, so I can't really complain (much).

The XP Task Manager wasn't really intended to do traffic monitoring. For that, Microsoft provides the Performance Monitor. Start -> run -> perfmon I to add a counter (or just hit the + sign> Under "performance object" pick something interesting to graph, such as Network Interface, TCP, UDP, etc. It's the same data as produced by nestat -a, but in graphical format. You can also do the same thing by installing SNMP and using a MIB browser to monitor and graph the network traffic statistics.

Retch. I have several customers with HP-5L and 6L printers. I have to replace some rubber parts every few years to prevent chronic paper jams. I keep trying to sell them a better printer, but they seem to like slow start, slow printing, and paper jams. For the parallel port, I use a USB to parallel adapter, or an ethernet print server.

Don't say that. It's bad for the repair business. I'm certain that if you look carefully, you can find something which needs fixing.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558