Save Skype at SJSU

You cyber revolutionary you!

Does your phone have skype in it?

I thought you were THE MAN.. Now what am I going to do with the shatterd peices of my reality? What?!

Robert is “The Man”? Naw, he’s the voice of the people.

Is it me or does your level of bravado in criticising Microsoft since leaving seem a little higher?

P.S.

We don’t allow Skype at our place of business, as with many other direct protocols, because it would be another thing sucking the expensive and already challenged bandwidth away (and their isn’t a relatively inexpensive next level available), preventing people from getting their actual work done.

Hmm — no Skype at Microsoft eh?

Did they allow/support Messenger audio/video?

(i.e. was the argument a bandwidth consumption argument, a NIH argument or just a we decided what’s best .. up yours argument?)

Always ways around IT clampdowns…

The best policies are case by case…general policies, but exceptions if can show legit cause. Going hard and fast, dictatorial can be backwards and even harmful.

Back in my IT Management days, I had a Dealer Manager that used IM to legitimately talk to his Dealer Network (yes really). Corporate IT was why don’t you just use this here, java-bloated Dealer Network app. But the Field guys he needed to contact, where always on third party IM’s (even on Mobile Phones). Now you can make bandwith and security arguments up to high heaven and be right, but that wouldn’t be the RIGHT THING to do. I wrangled and got him exceptional permission. Later on a new regime cracked down (no exceptions), and he got frustrated and bolted to the high-paying Dealership himself.

But then you have to watch for the geeky Power Users that just want all the flash and end up goofing off.

I think colin hit the nail on the head. Seems many think bandwidth is both free and unlimited.

We can’t use it as UC Santa Barbara either. The ISP said no way… how annoying.

There are a couple security issues with running skype nodes. Network within a network stuff, and silly high bandwith/compute consumption type thingies. Banning it altogether doesn’t seem smart, particularly at a university.

-r.

So you had MS shareholders unwittingly paying for you to indulge in your obsession with the internet. That’ll show ‘em

So now Microsoft IT people are f***ers.
Or we should believe it’s word filters and has nothing to do with people.

Yeah. It was not long time after you stopped getting paycheck from Microsoft for blogging here and filming movies with cheap camera (everybody was wathing only becouse there was no alternative sources).

Sorry for offending you all. You act like you’ve never heard such a word before. Very common on the streets of Silicon Valley and in Redmond.

Anyway, it might be useful for all of you to go and look at the early history of Microsoft. Why did people first bring PCs into the workplace? Cause IT made it too difficult to do new jobs using new technologies.

It’s always gonna be the workers vs. IT. And Microsoft has the best IT in the world.

Hey Robert,
Thanks for the publicity on the story! The bandwidth argument that the University is using doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, as Skype is really only being used by the nerds (for now) at SJSU. The irony of it is that by not talking to students first and being so rash, they got themselves bad publicity that has hindered actually banning it AND probably got people interested in Skype that didn’t know it existed before.

That’s smarts!

Is there such a thing as a Skype proxy server? SJSU could tell everyone to point their Skype “phones” to that and then bandwidth limit the machine, ensuring that there’s plenty of internet connectivity left over.

Hehe, Scoble.

Now watch the powers that be at MS read this entry and send you a bill for all your usage while at MS.

Power to the people!!!

I get a real bad taste in my mouth thinking about skype with its supernode issues and all, but its ubiquitous now and integrated into so many things. Kind of like fighting against using email. So I’m about to wave the white flag. Especially since they got those cool little WiFi phones.

Between them and TMobile with their GSM to broadband adapter it’s going to be some battle.

Andrew,

Your argument doesn’t make sense.

The problem with Skype is that it seeks out fast connections and makes them supernodes. Universities tend to have very fast connections.

So, no, it is not just nerds at SJSU who use it. You run Skype and EVERYONE who uses Skype in the entire world could use your connection. And they frequently do.

The UK’s academic network, Ja.Net, actually gives very specific advice to Universities who wish to use Skype and until very recently, they were considering banning Skype on Ja.Net connections because it contravenes their usage policy, which would have meant that Skype would be banned from every UK University.

VOIP isn’t the issue here, the way Skype works is.

Here’s the link to Ja.Net’s advice on Skype.

http://www.ja.net/development/voip/skype&janet.pdf

It should be pointed out that any University which allowed open, unrestricted usage of Skype would bring networks to their knees.

They blocked Skype for your own good, Bob, didn’t they tell you that? Had to keep all those bad buggies away that could sneak in and bring down the entire galaxial internet. Sheesh.

I don’t have Skype so I’m not biased; and I’m not going to argue the security/bugs aspect either, but who pays for the bandwidth? Do they add a “bandwidth fee” to the students’ tuition? Or do they budget for bandwidth out of money collected from tuition instead of allocated from the state’s general revenue funds? If so, then the students are paying for it, and let them use the bandwidth for what they want. If the taxpayers are paying for it, then it’s maybe a different story. In either case there’s a fixed amount of bandwidth connected to the college, and whoever’s paying ends up deciding how it’s used.

Now – if the college wants to split their network bandwidth into two pieces, the bandwidth covered by student fees and therefore unregulated, and the bandwidth paid for from the college budget to be used by faculty and staf, and therefore able to be regulated by college administration, that might be a workable solution – except that the students should ALSO expect to pay for network administrators and the like to keep their network running. Are they willing to pay for that too? If so – have at it!

The problem with Skype is that any fast computer with direct Internet access can become a super node. A super node can use considerable network resources.

If all you are doing is computer to computer calling, then I recommend using Gizmo Project or GOogle Talk. These products have the same great voice quality as Skype (they all use the same codec), but will not turn your computer into a super node.

You couldn’t use Skype at Microsoft? It works for me! You must have had something configured wrong.

Aaron: interesting. I was told that IT was explicitly blocking it unless you got approved for a direct connection on your desk.