VoIP Call Quality: Can You Hear Me Now?

The VoiP Girl wishes for fixing voice quality on the fly when using Skype, Gizmo Project, or other soft phones. She finds herself starting her VoIP conversations with

So how do I sound, can you hear me?

I’ve found myself doing pretty much the same thing. And sometimes the response, surprisingly, is a quizzical “yeaaaaah”. So surprising that I sometimes stop talking, trying to realign myself. No surprisingly, though, I only find myself doing this on pc-to-phone calls, not pc-to-pc.

Anyway, VoIP Girl passes on something Peter Csathy, CEO of Sightspeed, told her: SightSpeed detects video/ voice quality problems and automatically makes adjustments. She also mentions that Gizmo Project has a Call Quality Assistant that lets you check connection quality. (iPhox has it, too.)

No doubt some of the other soft phones have similar features, so it’s worth getting to know all the settings of your preferred clients. There are several factors that affect VoIP quality, and a number of ways to improve quality of service.