My latest headache here is skype.
Our internet connection shared across 500 accounts, is 400kbps download speed.
Compared to your connection in the U.S., well yours is least 5 times that probably more, and NOT shared to 500 people.
2 years ago, a few people were using Skype. Today nearly everyone is using it. But my internet connection hasn't improved and it's killing my network. While I was on furlough the decision was made to run it through our web proxy.
We run a proxy here for many reasons, not the least of which is web caching.
As soon as that happened people started complaining of wierd slowness.
Then I returned from furlough.
I started investigating all these wierd slownesses.
People began to complain about Skype not working all the time. I'd be caught in the hallway, called at home on weekends, asked to 'drop by and help'.
It didn't take long for me to put 2 and 2 together and realize Skype was killing my network.
Thankfully God saw this coming and saw fit to get two packeteers donated to us. So I've been pouring through the training manuals and I setup a lab and now, I'm a novice at it, but I'm able to do traffic shaping and keep skype at a low standstill.
Unfortunately there is no way to divorce the skype protocol over proxy (port 443) from the proxy itself and so even though skype is failing it's still killing my proxy server.
Skype is a wonderful tool for communication.
It's a horrible protocol for a network administrator with a limited internet connection and a proxy.
So... I need to find a way to completely kill Skype... everything else suffers until I do.
The only way I've found so far is through a Cisco router running the latest ios, only I don't HAVE a cisco router.
So until I can remove the proxy, or otherwise find a way to stop Skype, people here are going to be complaining about slow internet connection.
....
then it hit me... what about a non-technical solution... simply ask everyone to uninstall skype! See what happens? See if it will work! Do I dare ask the community to uninstall the software that enables them to , albeit choppily, speak to their family?
Enter Digicel.
We now have a cell phone company here that will let us call several world regions for about 40 cents a minute, which isn't too horribly bad.
Anyway,
I'm happy I found the cause, now I need to find the solution. But of course it works that way because you rarely are seeking a solution without first having a problem.
