Video Call Quality drops / starts out really bad

Question

Quality of video calling is sub-standard, I live in the UK and use Skype everyday to call a friend in the Philippines and our calls constantly drop out, and at times won't even connect. When connected video quality frequently is pixelated and at times freezes before dropping calls, on average I would say that I get about 10-12 call drop-outs per day and it's not acceptable. Both me and my friend's wi-fi signal are strong, yet everytime a call drops we get a message saying internet signal too weak, it's not the internet as Viber works perfectly well between us and our wi-fi signals are at maximum strength, it's Skype's signal too weak and no matter how many times I've left feedback complaining about this (at least 100 complaints over 10 months), nothing is done to ensure that me and my friend can have a conversation without call drop outs and pixelated and frozen screens. I'm sure that I'm not the only person in the world trying to have a video call with someone on the other side of the world, and also sure that I'm not the only person suffering from this sub-standard service, so it's time you did something to improve the quality of your service and make it possible for me to be able to talk to my friend. You advertise free worldwide Skype-to-Skype video calls, but don't provide the service because of sub-standard signal from Skype, I call that false advertising, so address this issue as it is becoming a real problem for me and my friend.

Answer 1

I have Skype video calls with my friend nearly 6,000 miles away in South Korea.  I have video conversations all the time.  My last video call a few days ago was 5 hours long with no issues.  You can't compare to different services equally since they operate differently.  If you are getting drop-outs then there is something limiting it and can be hardware or software based.  Skype functions best when multiple connections can be handled by your wired or wireless router simultaneously and UDP is not impeded.  If your equipments gets overloaded or is blocking traffic then the quality of your call or Internet connection stability can deprecate to the point where your call gets dropped.
To try to narrow the problem down:
1.  You should try wired instead of wireless.
2.  If you can bypass the routers used and connect directly, try that as well.
3.  If the routers being used have any firmware upgrades, be sure to upgrade to the latest.
4.  Try with uPnP enabled/disabled in your routers or in Skype to see if that helps.
Usually routers that claim to work well with T0rrents work best with Skype because their firmware handles uPnP and multiple connections without crashing, halting. or failing in some manner.
My friend in South Korea has moved several times in the past few years.  Many times I've had to remote into his system to repair the conditions of the Internet connection in the location he was staying.  At one point there was a community router being used on the floor he was staying on that was problematic.  I remoted into the unprotected Korean router and updated the firmware that was known to have uPnP issues.  After the firmware update the dropouts we were experiencing once ever 5-20 minutes disappeared and the connection was rock solid and continued to work flawlessly for the 6 months he stayed there.