Cornell Researcher Studies Skype Usage
This is an interesting academic study of how the Skype network operates. Some of the findings:
- Skype usage peaks during normal working hours. Usage is significantly reduced during the evening — by 40 to 50%. 20% fewer users are online during the weekend as well.
- Calls on Skype are longer than PSTN calls. The average Skype call in the study lasted nearly 13 minutes, versus the well known “3 minute average call length” cited on the PSTN.Â
This is just a single study, but it suggests that a significant proportion of Skype calls may be business calls, and that, because of the Voice 2.0Â ”voice is free” phenomenon, people are talking for longer.Â
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August 31st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
13 minutes per call for Skype must be correct. We also operate a smallish SIP based free calling servica a-la freeworlddialup and for the free sip2sip calls the average is 13 minutes per call, varying from a minimum of 11 and maximum of 14 depending on time of year.
Moving over to prepaid outbound only the minutes per call drop to 7.
And for our first line replacement the minutes per call drop to 3.5.
September 12th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
[...] Another audience question is about enterprise use. What are the enterprise plans for each of these vendors? Jeff Bonforte jumps in and notes that his usage spikes during 9 to 5 in every market. We saw that a few weeks ago in the Cornell study of Skype usage that was released also. Both Microsoft’s Dan Casey, and AOLs Ragui Kamel note that their companies have business offerings. The AOL offering includes encryption, which I wasn’t aware of. [...]