Category: Geeks r Us
I am trying to find out how much bandwidth the various VOIP clients out there, e.g. Skype, Aim, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Ventrilo, etc. etc., uses up.
I guess a sort of table, displaying the amount of megs consumed per hour, and/or the amount of kb/sec each VOIP client consumes, is really what I am after.
Any info, pointers, etc. would be very helpful.
Thanks much, your help would be highly appreciated.
Hi,
for skype, you might wanna enable the option of displaying technical call info, that should display how much bandwidth was used on a call.
or another possibility of looking at the amount of bandwidth used is to use a program that displays your upload and download usage however, a drawback to this is that you should only be using the voip clients at the time to ensure accurate results.
for me, I know not to keep skype running as it uses alot of bandwidth. So I only use skype when I need to make a call.
other suggestions from users would be greatly welcome as I am curious as well and thus have only found those workarounds mentioned.
I have even stopped using wlm and switched over to miranda IM as it uses less bandwidth.
yeah that and i don't think most consider the IM clients like AIM and Windows live messenger a voip client so good luck finding those on a list if you find such a list.
Wow q. I've often wondered the same thing, because I run voip for my land line phone. It's a company sort of like vonage here in canada and the united states. They assured me that it uses very little band width at all, but for those of us who are capped at a certain amount of gig usage on uploading or downloading each month, it would be interesting.
Cam
One thing you can do to limit the consumption of bandwidth for skype is disable your super node status. Essentially, the Skype system was built off a file sharing platform, and as such, when users don't have enough bandwidth, they may take some from other users who have been designated as super nodes. Once your account has been designated as a super node, and I do not know how the classification happens, you become a center for other's bandwidth. Especially when you do not have a call in progress. The only way to undo this is to run a registry key, which wil disable this function. Try a google search for "no super node.reg", and you should be able to locate it somewhere. I really think the makers of Skype should both make users more aware of this feature, and also offer an option within the program to disable it, but no one asked me. I mean, in a country like the US or Canada, you aren't charged by the amount of bandwidth you use yet, so it's not a big deal, but in other countries, this isn't the case.
Okay, in addition to all of this, here is another question:
Which VOIP client uses the least bandwidth, but provides reasonable sound quality?
Note that I'm not expecting Stereo Quality, no, just something with which one can converse and hear one another propperly.
Hi,
thanks much, fuster cluck for the supernode thing.
skype uses way less than what it did before.
I'd say probably still skype, simply because where bandwidth isn't available, it can be leached off of supernodes. Aim and windows live will work, but in a low bandiwdth situation, don't seem to be as effective. There are no specific charts for such comparison that I'm aware of, since it often varies from user to user for whatever reason. I can use Skype 95% of the time on a dial-up connection with no problem. The audio quality isn't as good as when on a broadband connection, but it gets the job done.