Skype users don't disconnect your PSTN service just yet

Stan Beer
Sunday, 19 August 2007 07:44

Opinion and Analysis

Last week nearly 200 million regular Skype users received a stark reminder of the dangers of over reliance on single vendor services. After most were left wondering for two days why Skype no longer worked, the VoIP and messaging provider posted a message on its home page denying that its system had crashed. That message was more than a trifle disturbing.

This is the message that Skype posted:

"Hello everyone,

"Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. As we continue to work hard at resolving the problem, we wanted to dispel some of the concerns that you may have. The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. We love our customers too much to let that happen. This problem occurred because of a deficiency in an algorithm within Skype networking software. This controls the interaction between the user’s own Skype client and the rest of the Skype network.

"Rest assured that everyone at Skype is working around the clock — from Tallinn to Luxembourg to San Jose — to resume normal service as quickly as possible."

Without trying to get too picky about IT terminology, the irony of a communications vendor claiming in one breath that its system has not crashed, while in another explaining that users can't get service because its networking software is broken was.,..well, breath-taking.

Whether you accept Skype's explanation that the days long outage was not a crash or not, the point is if like many you had come to rely on Skype as your chief source of voice and messaging communications, you would have been severely inconvenienced. Doubly frustrating was the fact that it took more than a day for most users to get news from Skype of what went wrong.

For the casual home user, Skype going down for a couple of days was an inconvenience. However, many small businesses around the world have come to rely on Skype as a cheap means of intra company communications, so for them the outage was more serious.

As this is being written, there are still some users that can't access the service but most are back online. What is unsettling, however, is that many users and analysts report that the service has deteriorated over recent months, with quality of voice calls declining and delays in messages being delivered increasing in length and frequency.

All of the above raises questions about the scalability of the Skype network. One year ago, I could make a Skype call to a fellow user and more often than not get reception that was easily superior to my expensive PSTN voice service. Today, a good crystal clear connection is a rarity, the connection deteriorates markedly when we try to initiate a conference call and voice over wireless broadband is hardly worth trying.

As Skype relies on proprietary technology, the exact reasons for the recent crash (let's call a shovel a shovel) remain a secret. Noticeably under pressure, Skype has promised to provide a more detailed explanation of its problems on Monday. Regardless of the explanation, however, many Skype users who were about to disconnect their old telephone landline now may well think twice.