I bought a Linksys CIT300 phone that's supposed to work with Skype at my cabin. I have Wild Blue satellite service. I can't get the phone to work with Skype. I've read the manuals, and Skype sent me a list of things to do, which I did.
First I got garbled sound, now nothing. I'm about ready to chuck this, but I have heard of others having good luck with it. It is the last resort for phone service at our cabin. Other than that, we have to drive three miles to the mountaintop to use the cell.
Satellite service is generally not recommended for Skype, or any other real-time network systems (like online games, webcam chat, etc). I've got Wildblue also, and while the download speeds are acceptable when compared to dialup, the ping response time (how long it takes for a single packet to get to it's destination and then back again) is abysmal.
Satellite round trip delay tends to hose anything "real time" like voice, video, VPN, etc. If you have a high speed connection at another location with access to a land line, you *might* have better luck operating your own VoIP bridge so you have control of both ends and can set longer timeouts, etc. Not a particularly simple project.
Yes and no. They have the same round trip delay to contend with, but they are designed to deal with the delays so the audio data stream doesn't break up. You still have a noticeable delay between the time you finish saying something and the time the other person hears it, responds and that audio gets to you. The problem with the skype stuff is that it's not designed to handle the long delay so it has errors and the audio breaks up.
I have a report from a reliable source that Vonage VoIP service does work over Hughes satellite Internet service, but with significant delays of 1-2 seconds. The person went back to land line for voice, so it's not useable for routine communication, but potentially ok for remote cabin use.
Don't you also have to pay for bandwidth with your satellite service? If so, I would not use Skype or any other VoIP service for that matter. Skype is even worse than others because your bandwidth will also be used by other people since it's a peer-to-peer service, meaning everyone shares. It would be fine if you had a broadband connection with free bandwidth but on a satellite Internet bandwidth charges could be steep.
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Charges to a non Skype user to call you, or you to call them are $.021 per minute, which converts to two cents a minute. As per bandwidth, we are not there long enough or often enough to approach the limitations. If one does get close, they just slow you down until you catch up with the quota. This is the last ditch resort to get some type of phone service at the cabin without getting an incredibly expensive satellite phone.
In order to use a cell, I have to drive about three miles up the mountain to a viewpoint. This is the common practice, but inconvenient at times.......... snowy, rainy, middle of the night ...... Plus, if it were an emergency situation, I might have trouble getting there to call in. A couple of my neighbors have strong cell phones and service, and claim that if they hang out their top window on a particular side, theirs works. Mine won't where I am. I am considering building a lookout tower out of telephone poles, but wouldn't know if it works from up there until after all the hard work.
You might try an auxiliary antenna. I fastened my old Wilson truck driver-type to a length of PVC, fastened that to the house, ran the cable in through a crawlspace vent and into the dining room via a HVAC duct and improved my reception to an acceptable level. But I had
*some* reception, however poor.
You can pick up the antenna at any major truck stop chain, they have acceptable return policies.
Of course about a month later a new tower came online...
I own my scaffolding, damn useful stuff for all kinds of stuff. Right now I have an 18' tower setup for practicing my vertical rope skills (or lack thereof) for caving. Of course I don't have a wife problem.
What kind of height do you think you'd need to get a cell antenna to? You could buy or build a nice little crank up tower that would be safely down and less of a lightning target when not in use.
Sounds like progress. No reason it can't work as long as you can make the necessary adjustments so it will tolerate the latency.
Get a nice helium balloon, a long kite string and some binoculars. Hang your cell phone from the balloon aimed so the signal display points down. Send it up, watch the signal with the binoculars and mark the string when the signal is good. Bring back down and measure the string to see just how high a tower you need. :)
Yep, for the application the delays shouldn't be a big deal.
Didn't look at that particular link, but I know there are some decent quality cell repeater systems designed to get coverage into big buildings. One of those with an antenna on a suitable tall tower / mast would get you and any guests "normal" cell coverage in the cabin.
Pete: Puhleeze. I don't want my wife to know that you can RENT scaffolding. She'll be having me do all sorts of work. I want to build a observation tower out of telephone poles. For now, I'd just mount it on the peak of the second floor of the cabin, about as good as all the effort to put it on a pole.
I did some changes according to the things Skype sent me. I DID get it to work on the test call to London from my lowland house, and it uses a dish satellite for Internet service. It's just a DIFFERENT dish ISP service than the one at the cabin.
We are driving to the cabin this afternoon for a couple of reasons, and I'm going to test the unit up there now that I know it is at least working.
I worked on offshore platforms in the 70's. We had radio phones, and you had to say "over" when you were through. Two people could not talk at one time. If there is a latency problem, I can live with it for the purposes of having a marginally working phone in the remote location. I'll post more on this after the trip to the cabin, and after we get back in Las Vegas tomorrow.
I did get the post about the cell phone antenna, and that's a thought. Looking for a cell amp right now, and trying to find a price. We may have another tower we can get that right now is too far. Problem is, the tower that is closest to us is on the other side of the mountain, and the waves don't penetrate.
Thanks for the help, everyone. We'll see how this works out.
Shoot. Went to the cabin today, and the Skype wouldn't work. It would work down here in the lowland, but not up there on the dish.
Tomorrow we go to Vegas for a few days, and if I have the time, I have to call Linksys and see if it's in their phone, or IF I can reach a human at Skype, if it's something there.
Getting frustrating, but have to keep trying until I get it working or know why it won't.
I also have a cabin, but not as remote as your's appears to be. Couldn't get cell phones to work because of hills (not mountains) between cabin and cell phone towers. Bought the cell phone antenna mentioned by another poster. Still couldn't get it to work with any regularity. Spent a LOT of time rotating the antenna for best reception, only to find that what worked today wouldn't work tomorrow. Even constructed a reflector behind the antenna to try to concentrate the signal. No improvement. Finally decided the antenna needed a clear line-of-sight to the tower and I couldn't get that because of hills & trees. So I gave up and the thing is still on the pole used as a bird roost only. I bit the bullet had a very long land line run to the cabin.
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