Understanding Skype’s limitations on Windows Phone

Soon afterward Skype for Windows Phone beta came out (and went gold months thereafter), users were dismayed to discover the app didn't piece of work, well, like Skype. That is, information technology couldn't run in the background to receive phone calls or IMs from friends and family.  Circulating reports suggested that perhaps "push button notifications were too ho-hum" or that the problem was a outcome of "[…] how Skype works and how the Windows Phone OS works."

The real reason? Well, it's complicated…

Skype is a peer-to-peer (P2P) Phonation over IP (VoIP) client. P2P pregnant that each Skype user – like yous – is function of an intertwined graph of other users throughout the world. Just not all users are equal. Some users on the network are "super nodes", an ornate term assigned to a user that acts as a broker, moving data around on behalf of its locally continued peers and Skype. It is this decentralization of network responsibleness that lets Skype maintain such loftier stability and simultaneous user counts – 35 meg every bit of concluding count in March. (Startup competitor Tango isn't nearly as circuitous; it merely uses a client-to-server model based on the open XMPP protocol.)

Here'south how a piece of that network would await visualized with cute circles and lines:

In the figure higher up, Skype users -- you and I -- are represented by the smaller circles. Nosotros're connected to a super node with lots of CPU power and bandwidth. The line connecting usa to Skype'southward login servers is nowadays to demonstrate that some data aren't sent through local super nodes. In this case, super nodes don't handle login requests for obvious security reasons.

Let'due south move on to how a Skype telephone call is fabricated.

Beginning, for the sake of brevity, let's assume that you lot already added John Doe to your Skype client's contact list. More often than not speaking, the software found John's details via a complex traversal of the Skype P2P network. The important take away hither is that your local super node helped y'all find John and passed on all the details needed (e.yard. IP address) to make a successful call.

Let's give him a ring.

In this figure, a Skype user – you – is initiating a direct connection with John Doe; he receives the call and y'all both conversation for 12 hours most favorite cookie recipes. It'due south important to note hither that call routing isn't performed through Skype servers at all. In about cases, straight communication is possible and utilized. In other rare cases, Skype may utilize an intermediate node, e.1000. the super node, to relay traffic.

Cue Windows Telephone.

Yous probably know by at present that Windows Telephone 7.5 "Mango" ushered in support for fast application switching (multitasking) and groundwork agents, picayune bits of lawmaking that can be programmed to run in the background. However, none of these agents support running for an indefinite amount of time or have the ability to maintain persistent network connections. That means that the application couldn't possibly run in the background permit alone receive calls from other users. Just that's where notifications dive in and salve the day, correct?

Well, no. Retrieve when nosotros called John Doe in an before example? That call was direct; Skype client to Skype client. At that place wasn't a Skype server in the middle of that transaction, only two users waving each other down and having a chat. Where would you install a Windows Phone notification server? On a super node? Nope, most calls are direct, think? What nearly a server at Skype headquarters? Won't do any skilful at that place either. The but option is to notify the user at receipt of an actual call, something the Skype for Windows Phone client can only practise if it'south running in the foreground.

You see the dilemma at present.

With Skype for Windows Phone having been announced all the way back at the Microsoft MIX conference in 2022, the apprehension (and vitriol) levels for app availability were off the charts. Not to mention all the other platforms had Skype already. And then Microsoft had no pick: They worked with Skype to push out a "1.0" application knowing damn well they'd piss off half of their user base of operations. But they delivered the application with the promise that users could look a meliorate version in the time to come.

And from what nosotros've heard of the side by side version of Windows Phone "Apollo", Microsoft and Skype will make practiced on that promise too. Back in Feb, information technology was reported that Skype would become a first course citizen on Windows Phone. So with Apollo nearing, it'due south not long before all this becomes a hazy retentiveness of Windows Phone'southward growing pains.

[It'south important to note that Microsoft is working with Skype to alter how their network operates, specifically the fashion super nodes are created and operate; the network is evolving as you read this. So while I tried to remain as accurate as possible, there may be errors.]

Information technology's here

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-skype%E2%80%99s-limitations-windows-phone

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