China hates skype?

March 14, 2009 6:18 PM

How can I overcome bad Skype quality when calling into China?

So my girlfriend recently moved to China (Beijing), and whereas before while she was in Japan we could video chat via Skype without problems, now it's almost impossible to talk. She says that she can hear me fine, but on my end I get a mixture of garbled electronic noise and it sounds like she's pointing a large fan at the mic and yelling over it.

I have successfully used SkypeOut to call her friend's cell phone, but ideally I love to find a free option that I could use to have voice conversations with her. I am in Seattle Washington.

I am open to trying any software or service but it needs to be simple enough that I can walk her through setting it up on her end. Thanks!

posted by kinakomochi to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Could be a bandwidth issue on her end (specfically her upload bandwidth); have her try a speed test site like this and see how it looks. China can have relatively poor connections to the rest of the global internet.
posted by reptile at 6:31 PM on March 14

Might want to try Gizmo - it wasn't blocked when skype was for me in the middle east.
posted by filmgeek at 7:31 PM on March 14

I have previously used skype in Beijing, China with positive results. Both ends were fine. Not to say things couldn't have changed, but I would think it might be a computer issue. Did her mike get damaged in the move?
posted by silkygreenbelly at 10:07 PM on March 14

I also used Skype when I was in Beijing and generally the quality was fine. I did occasionally experience the kind of noise/distortion you're getting, but it wasn't the norm. I also called someone in Beijing on Skype (from Canada) just the other day and had no problems whatsoever. I never used video though so that could be a factor. If she has a laptop it might be worth trying to call from different locations like home, office, school, coffee shop, etc, because one may have a better connection. I'm pretty sure I saw people talking on Skype using the wifi in coffee shops. Anyway it's not blocked or anything, so keep trying.
posted by benign at 11:46 PM on March 14

Yeah, I'd say it's likely not Skype-specific. Could be bandwidth limits where ever she was or something completely different. I know several people that use Skype from China without issue.
posted by michswiss at 2:00 AM on March 15

Agreeing with others; we use Skype from Beijing with no apparent problem. (That said, we have only used Skype from China, so we have no baseline for comparison. But still, it seems to work fine.)
posted by hawkeye at 2:19 AM on March 15

Thanks for the help.. I'll have her play around with different mic/computer/ location setups a bit more. It's encouraging that there are people doing this without issue. Thanks again!
posted by kinakomochi at 6:32 PM on March 15