Re: [Linphone-users] Re: several faq corrections and enhancements

[Alastair Johnson]

Here (UK) bandwidth is almost always expressed in kbits/second too. This is 
true both for codec bitrates and for network connections like 3G, ADSL and 
cable. The only exception I can think of is the download speed shown when 
saving a file in a web browser.

To some extent it doesn't matter what the units are though. With the iOS and 
Android clients we will be seeing more people who don't know, or want to know, 
the difference between bits and bytes. They just want something that works, or 
some advice on how to get it working easily. The FAQ needs to put it in terms 
they can understand, and let them know what to expect in terms of quality, 
reliability and the sort of network you can typically use it on. Perhaps a 
table something like this:

Speed   Quality Reliability     Typical network type
128kb/s lowest  highest 3G (if not too congested), ADSL far from exchange
???kb/s low             high            most ADSL
???kb/s high            low             fast ADSL
????kb/s        highest lowest  Cable

I'll leave it to someone who uses video to supply some reasonable numbers. It 
might be good to mention the obvious, like potential data charges increase as 
the bitrate increases, or your call may be breaking up because your son just 
started downloading the latest ubuntu iso.

Another approach would be a general instruction to start at the minimum, and 
increase until quality is good enough. If you step up and the picture breaks 
up then step down again , as that's as quick as your connection can handle.

For the future we could look at giving some diagnostic feedback and advice if 
the datastream is lossy or can't keep up. Perhaps an indicator that you can 
click to reduce bitrate and reconnect the call? I guess if it was reasonable 
to approximate adaptive bitrate through reinvites everyone would be doing it.

On Tuesday 15 March 2011, Simon Morlat wrote:
> Hi Liviu,
> 
> Thanks for the typo correction.
> 
> The link you suggest for bandwidth checking doesn't work for me (linux
> with sun java 6). The java applet has an exception and fails to start.
> 
> Concerning bandwidth expressed in ko/s instead of kbits/s, well maybe it
> is apparently a matter of local uses. Here nobody talks about kilo bytes
> for network bandwidth. There are always expressed in kbits/seconds.
> Are there any experiences regarding that from other people in this
> list ?
> 
> 
> Simon
> 
> Le dimanche 13 mars 2011 à 00:13 +0100, Liviu Andronic a écrit :
> > Hello Simon
> > Would you please consider the following changes to the FAQ:
> > - typo in A2: "octobler" -> "October"
> > - add to A6: [.. tell linphone about the bandwidth limits (upload and
> > download) of your internet connection], which you can find using a speed
> > test service (http://www.voipreview.org/voipspeedtester.aspx). [For that
> > go to the 'codec' tab..]
> > 
> > The second one would be especially helpful to those having issues with
> > the video, as I did at the beginning. Cheers
> > Liviu