Bruce Stewart on the O’Reilly Emerging Telephony blog, reviews the Linksys CIT300 Dual Mode iPhone and says, in a somewhat fence-sitting conclusion, that while overall he had a positive experience with the device, he ultimately isn’t moved:
But for several factors, the biggest being the inconsistent quality I experience with SkypeOut and SkypeIn calls, I’m not going to be switching to a device like this in my home anytime soon.
Hello. I just got a CIT400 installed at home today. So far I’m fairly happy with the phone itself but have some issues with SkypeOut. I tried several SkypeOut calls and had various family members try some as well. Being a bit of a techie I was just really impressed with the ease of setup and excited about the free calls over the internet. However, I doubt that after the first experience, given a choice, my family will routinely use SkypeOut instead of the landline. They unanimously complained of a "slight delay", making full duplex conversation difficult. I’d love to hear suggestions for how to perhaps tune the SkypeOut experience? If I can’t do that then this phone is a fun toy for the geek in the house, but in terms of quality just doesn’t cut it as a replacement for at&t.
I bought this Linksys Skype phone. At present, I regret my decision. The CIT300’s sound quality is very good, and the phone itself is small and comfortable to carry, but the call features and user interface are poor.
*** Far and away the biggest problem: why would anybody design a (landline/VOIP) phone which cannot switch between land and VOIP calls??!! If you are on a Skype call and want to answer a landline call, you have to hang up the Skype call, and vice versa.
You also can’t use SkypeOut to dial a number from your landline phone book.
I agree. The problem with Skype is it doesn
I installed skype on my daughter’s PC. In about 2+ months of calling .. over 20+ calls I can say the quality is consistently horrible.
There might have been 2/3 calls that were completed without redial and where both sides could hear properly.
You can hear it . but barely .. I guess the only reason people put up with it because everyone is so used to poor connection from cell phones !!!
Thanks guys for the comments. I was thinking of using Skype as a replacement for my regular line. I will think twice.
Are they’re any Skype alternatives that correctly work?
I have found SkypeOut to be very variable … sometimes I can have hour long conference calls that sound prefectly fine, other times it’s like trying to whisper to someone trapped down a deep well during a storm.
In calling for tech support recently, I had initially tried calling via my North American SkypeOut plan. But they have a hard time hearing me, so I’m forced to use my cell.
Sometimes when I’ve called via Skype to friends or family in town, they didn’t answer the phone because they didn’t recognize the displayed number.
I frequently run into the problem where, although I can make a successful call to echo123 (meaning that my Mic is setup right), the person I’m calling can’t hear me. It’s embarrassing because then you have to call them up with the landline and explain that you were the prank caller. Skypeout is frustrating; it’s so cheap but so unreliable that it can’t be used to replace your long distance plan (and save you money).
We’re tired of unreliable VoIP. The only VoIP that works for me is PhoneGnome (hi, David) – rock solid reliable, unintrusive, solves a problem (voicemail to email). Oh, and that’s the only one that works with the stuff I already have – my existing number, wiring, payments, and handset.
Funny that. Maybe Skype should have bought