Skype issues
droskill
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hey all -

I've had FIOS for a while now, and I continue to have problems with Skype.  The basic problem isn't connecting, but rather that I continue to get message saying the connection between me and the other person isn't strong enough to support video.  I also get video freezes and drops.  This is particular true when I'm communicating with my mom in England.

Now, up till now, I assumed it was a problem with my mom's connection - my upload/download speeds are outstanding - but recently I was Skyping with her in another location (she in her usual location) and, lo and behold, the connection was about 100x better.  And this was on a public Wifi network on a relatively low speed connection (and shared!).

So now I'm trying to figure out why Skype has so much difficulty on my FIOS network and wondering if anyone has any thoughts.  I've checked the port that Skype uses and seen that the router isn't blocking that port.

Port forwarding showed below.  Anybody have any suggestions for next steps in troubleshooting this?

Thanks!

192.168.1.4 Skype UDP at 192.168.1.4:5201 (1717) 
UDP Any -> 5201
All Broadband Devices Active  

192.168.1.4 Skype TCP at 192.168.1.4:5201 (1717) 
TCP Any -> 5201
All Broadband Devices Active

Labels (1)
Re: Skype issues
dslr595148
Community Leader
Community Leader

#1 What is the exact brand, model and hardware version of your router?

#2 At home, where you usng a wired or wireless connection to the router?

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Re: Skype issues
droskill
Enthusiast - Level 2

@dslr595148 wrote:

#1 What is the exact brand, model and hardware version of your router?

#2 At home, where you usng a wired or wireless connection to the router?



#1: Actiontec MI424WR - Version: 4.0.16.1.56.0.10.14.4

#2: Wireless

I have no trouble streaming video from Vudu to my TV via wifi in HD - so I know that the wireless router is capable of supporting video at high speeds, but Skype still gives problems.

Again any thoughts appreciated.


Re: Skype issues
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Skype I would imagine should be using no where near the amount needed for Vudu in HD, unless Skype is being used in HD as well.

Right now there's two factors that need ruling out:

1: Is the problem only occuring to overseas calls traveling a particular route? Perhaps performing a traceroute to and from her connection might find out where the problem is. You would do this by giving your Mom your IP address, and ask her to perform a traceroute and paste the results to you in an e-mail. You do the same by asking her for the IP address she holds from her ISP, and running a trace to her. The path traveled can differ from each direction, and the path each traceroute packet will take can also differ, but this should give us a better understanding what is going on.

Many Free Wi-Fi places tend to use a Business Class connection. Typically it would be a T1 line, some use typical DSL or Cable connections, or the rare Fiber connection from a business provider, so their routing may be a bit more robust than Verizon's residential routing.

2: Is the connection on the other end of reasonable quality capable of handing the call both to there and from there? A speed test from that connection would be appreciated during a time Skype is not running. If the person on the other end is using something such as BT Infinity (A VDSL2 Fiber to the Curb solution), that network is pretty new so it shouldn't be having issues, but an older ADSL/DOCSIS network might have some problems.

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Re: Skype issues
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@droskill wrote:

Port forwarding showed below.  Anybody have any suggestions for next steps in troubleshooting this?

Thanks!

192.168.1.4 Skype UDP at 192.168.1.4:5201 (1717) 
UDP Any -> 5201
All Broadband Devices Active  

192.168.1.4 Skype TCP at 192.168.1.4:5201 (1717) 
TCP Any -> 5201
All Broadband Devices Active



I don't believe any port forwarding is needed for Sype, at least I don't have any and it appears to work fine.  Can you tell me where you found documentation that said it was necessary?

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Re: Skype issues
droskill
Enthusiast - Level 2

@Smith6612 wrote:

Skype I would imagine should be using no where near the amount needed for Vudu in HD, unless Skype is being used in HD as well.

Right now there's two factors that need ruling out:

1: Is the problem only occuring to overseas calls traveling a particular route? Perhaps performing a traceroute to and from her connection might find out where the problem is. You would do this by giving your Mom your IP address, and ask her to perform a traceroute and paste the results to you in an e-mail. You do the same by asking her for the IP address she holds from her ISP, and running a trace to her. The path traveled can differ from each direction, and the path each traceroute packet will take can also differ, but this should give us a better understanding what is going on.

Many Free Wi-Fi places tend to use a Business Class connection. Typically it would be a T1 line, some use typical DSL or Cable connections, or the rare Fiber connection from a business provider, so their routing may be a bit more robust than Verizon's residential routing.

2: Is the connection on the other end of reasonable quality capable of handing the call both to there and from there? A speed test from that connection would be appreciated during a time Skype is not running. If the person on the other end is using something such as BT Infinity (A VDSL2 Fiber to the Curb solution), that network is pretty new so it shouldn't be having issues, but an older ADSL/DOCSIS network might have some problems.


#1 - I haven't done a traceroute to her location, so that's a good idea.  I still find it a bit hard to believe that routing could really be the problem, but definitely worth a test.

#2 - Excellent question - I believe she's got an older ADSL network running - she's out in the relative boonies in the UK, so I doubt they've brought fiber to her door.  Not sure how I would answer that as she's not technical.  I suppose I could just ask her to go to speedtest.net and run it to a Boston hosting center to see what kind of performance she's having.

But then we go back to the issue of it working fine outside of the house - if her connection was fairly slow, I assume I'd see similar performance regardless of what network I was on.  That says to me that the issue is my network (or the route my traffic takes to her).

Re: Skype issues
droskill
Enthusiast - Level 2

@viafax999 wrote:
I don't believe any port forwarding is needed for Sype, at least I don't have any and it appears to work fine.  Can you tell me where you found documentation that said it was necessary?


I'm not doing or setting up any port forwarding for Skype.  Skype makes the request to the router to pass traffic and router either accepts them or rejects them.  Here, we see that the traffic is being accepted by the router.  If the router cut off the traffic, then I'd have to setup a port forward rule to get around it.

Re: Skype issues
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Sounds like a starting plan. Teaching her how to do a traceroute should be pretty simple, so if you screen share with her or use Remote Desktop software such as TeamViewer to do it for her, that is a start.

Just keep the rule of thumb in mind when it comes to data communication over long distance networks. If the routing quality is poor as it is already, distance will only make the poor route perform even worse. By function, increased latency will cause TCP connections to slow down unless your system is using a large receive window, so your mother may not pull nice speeds to a server using TCP-based speed tests unless her computer is automatically tuning itself, or her ISP has some quality routes overseas. With UDP data, which is often what programs such as Skype rely on, distance increases the chances for packet loss especially as you start to route over links that handle a ton of international traffic, touching base with the poor route concept. So, sticking with that, if Verizon is taking you down a bad route to a transit provider is it is, or data is being handled incorrectly due to misconfigured equipment, you're already looking at a potential problem for UDP data. Due to the nature of Overseas networks, those links tend to have less capacity per fiber, due to distance as compared to terrestrial fiber links, and if there is a good volume of data going over those links, you will see UDP data loss occur at a much greater rate as other data is "Squeezed" onto the pipe. I'm saying this in a simple matter since there are pieces to the puzzle, but if the provider who services the location offering Free Wi-Fi has a robust, quality network and they happen to be peering with a transit company who delivers data via overseas cable with a well running network, that would explain the nice performance you get.

Hence the need for traceroutes. The greater the variance in latency, the higher the jitter on a route and the higher the chance of packet loss with UDP Data will occur. UDP traces give you a better idea of what is going on since ICMP Echo requests are often filtered as low priority data on many transit networks. UDP traces tend to be dropped more by Firewalls since they are not as common, but if the trace completes well into the Verizon network, and well into your mother's ISP's network, then you should get an idea on how things are performing.

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Re: Skype issues
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

There is the possibility that this has to do with the Supernode that you end up using when you're at home.  Since Skype on both ends I imagine (or at least your end) is behind a firewall, it's likely that you may not be able to form a direct client to client connection for the conversation.   When that happens, Skype employs a third machine (established nodes on the public internet -- and at one point any user's machine could essentially become a supernode although I'm not sure that happens anymore)  which acts as a "proxy" to which both parties connect (actually, supernodes talk to one another and each endpoint can be connected to a different supernode making for at least 4 or more machines in the mix) and thru which the conversation then travels.   the traffic is encrypted, so no real risk, but it's a third party path which involves both bandwidth and performance fo the third party systems in terms of how well the call performs.

When you were on a public wifi network, you may have found a different supernode with much better performance characteristics or even a direct path.

Re: Skype issues
droskill
Enthusiast - Level 2

Let's imagine that I get the tracert done - what should I be looking for?  After how many stops does the path become sub-optimal?