Just when I was one step closer to tossing my land line, Skype goes down today. I’ve become fairly addicted to Skype recently and didn’t really even think it could fail. I had just kind of thought it was always going to be there. A lot like… my telephone land line which only went out for me once before during a hurricane.
I’ve actually almost abandoned email because of Skype’s chat capabilities. It’s just easier to send a chat and wait for it to go through whenever my friend logs back into Skype than it is to send email and have to wade through all the spam.
And now this. I haven’t been able to login to Skype for about 24 hours and already, I’m back to email. Most of the emails are “Is Skype working for you yet?”.
My biggest complaint about the Skype outage today? Skype’s explanation. Their website said
Apologies for the delay, but we can now update you on the Skype sign-on issue. […]The Skype system has not crashed or been victim of a cyber attack. […] 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.
Funny, the whole thing was working fine yesterday.
Did somebody change the mysterious algorithm overnight? Don’t they test this stuff before they load it onto a network that is responsible for communication between oh… say about 10 million people?
Something like this pisses me off because it makes me realize I may never get rid of my telephone land line and that’s something I’ve been pushing myself to do.
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I have to say that Skype has been extremely reliable, and for the most part it is free - if you want to talk to other Skype users - and the U.S. long distance unlimited calling plan is pretty cheap. Granted, Skype-in, where you get a landline phone number is more expensive, but overall it’s still a great deal. So you use it for free and they had an outage? What do you want?
Do you have a cell phone? You probably do (if not you should get one). Between Skype and a cell phone, I’m not sure why you would keep you landline phone. I guess some people just can’t get rid of that antiquated technology, but blaming skype for it (due to one outage) is blame shifting I’m afraid.
Oh, try video chatting on your telephone at home. If you press it really hard into your face, people will be able to see you.
@macaddict, I think you missed the point of the complaint. The complaint is not about the unreliability of Skype.
The complaint is about the excuse Skype gave for the outage. How does a glitch in an algorithm appear over night when everything was working fine the days and months before unless Skype loaded something that wasn’t tested properly?
It makes one suspicious quite honestly. It sounds like Skype is trying to tell you a few pieces of code here and there messed everything up but certainly they have a massive testing network they use before they unleash rogue algorithms on the network on which millions of people now rely.
Then that sure is a lot of complaining about the excuse a company gives for an outage. We can line them up with the cable company, cell phone companies, itunes, my hosting company, and on-and-on, and flog them in unison if you want.
Chewie. in a previous post, you’ve been struggling with this issue of getting rid of your own landline. Complain about a technicality all you want, but there seems to be more to it than that. Perhaps you’re projecting?
In case you’ve forgotten this.
Seriously, live on the edge, dump your landline.
macaddict said:
[quote]We can line them up with the cable company, cell phone companies, itunes, my hosting company, and on-and-on, and flog them in unison if you want.[/quote]
But we can’t line them up with the telephone company because absent some act of God, the phones work.
chewie said:
[quote]But we can’t line them up with the telephone company because absent some act of God, the phones work.[/quote]
Honestly, your complaining about something you get for FREE! Really, I take it back, you should keep your landline Actually you should get another one installed so you have two of them to complain about.
macaddict on August 17th, 2007 at 10:53 am | Link
macaddict said:
[quote]Honestly, your complaining about something you get for FREE![/quote]
I pay for Skype. I have not been able to log in for 2 days and it’s PISSING ME OFF!
bj on August 17th, 2007 at 11:32 am | Link
bj said:
[quote]I pay for Skype. I have not been able to log in for 2 days and it’s PISSING ME OFF![/quote]
Point well made, bj. I pay for Skype, too, through the yearly unlimited US call plan and per minute plan. I don’t rely on it though, it supplements my cell phone plan, so I am not too concerned about the outage. For me it is an annoyance. I can appreciate those, like you, who are more affected though.
As for Chewie, he did not indicate that he uses any paid Skype services, and honestly between this and his past post, he’s got “issues” that are far removed from this.
macaddict on August 17th, 2007 at 11:44 am | Link
The thing that upset me about the skype outage was the “touchy feely” updates on the page that made it seem like Skype was a small organization in touch with its customers. When it was down I wanted it to be MEGA COPRP INC INTL, getting it sorted by use of a massive team of techies with horn rimmed specs and no life outside whether I could call my mum and check the that the cat was well..
PsychWard said:
[quote]When it was down I wanted it to be MEGA COPRP INC INTL, getting it sorted by use of a massive team of techies..[/quote]
At least Skype acted like MEGA CORP by blaming the whole thing on Microsoft and Windows computers. That’s the cool thing to do in the business tech world. Blame it all on Microsoft.
Ok for those of you who don’t fully understand computer algorythms.. Noone specified they did an update with a faulty algorythm to cuase the outage and in fact if they did they could have simply reverted to the old software to correct the problem.
An algorythm can function for days, months, years or even decades before that one mystical quirk causes it to fail. The simplest most known case of this was the big Y2K scare. It is s specific event that the algorythm (normally a decision reduced to mathematical formulations) is not designed to accomadate. When this one event occurs then opps the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket. With the billions of possbilities out there for many computer applications it is nearly impossible to test for all of them even with the most elaborate testing procedures.
Anyway im sure the skype outage is not nearly as neferious of an underground alien plot as you may think. (after all have you ever had your computer lock up without just reason?)
Mark on August 30th, 2007 at 11:02 am | Link
I don’t even subscribe to skype and they tried to charge my pay pal account 6 times on the same day for $10.00 a pop. They will now be investigated for internet fraud by my credit card company,
bill on December 10th, 2007 at 6:23 pm | Link
Hi there
Since February 2008, the communications between Europe and China are a Nightmare. I am using Skype from CHina to Belgium. People get ‘pissed’ because they can not understand me clearly. It is hard for them to keep friendly with such matter. If payable messenger is better, I will switch!
Other thing, I can Not find where to write my complaint in the Skype Website!! Very hard to find!
Skype is NOT reliable anymore, sorry to say it. If you find the Complaints SKype email, please give it to me…
Good luck!
Pierre
pierre on February 13th, 2008 at 8:27 am | Link