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Topic: Social Enterprise

Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

Summary: Earlier this year, Skype announced support for group video calling with up to five users participating. With Skype 5.0 beta, that number has been upped to 10.

Rachel King

By for The ToyBox |

Earlier this year, Skype announced support for group video calling with up to five users participating. With Skype 5.0 beta, that number has been upped to 10.

There are two catches to making use of this fun service. First, everyone who wishes to participate must have the most current version of Skype running. The second catch is that Skype 5.0 beta is only available for Windows right now.

Other changes found in the new upgrade include some of the usual technical stuff, like improved stability and a refreshed user interface. There have also been some tweaks to call quality, including a feature called "automatic call recovery," which automatically reconnects Skype calls interrupted due to network problems.

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Topics: Social Enterprise, Collaboration

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7 comments
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  • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

    Do people actually use Skype? The only times I've seen it used in the last year was once from a contestant on "who wants to be a millionaire?" and guests on Oprah.
    Loverock Davidson
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

      @Loverock Davidson All the time. Video calls between my wife and her family in Germany, Calling my home when I'm traveling in Korea and Taiwan. Keeps the price to $0.00.
      Scubajrr
      Reply Vote

    • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

      @Loverock Davidson

      Yes. All the time. Especially military families. My mother used it daily to talk to my father.
      CobraA1
      Reply Vote

  • I use it

    I use Skype so my parents can see the grandchildren while spending the winters in Florida!
    jasonemmg
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

    IF service fails with ONE connection what would happen to 10??? My wife uses Skype here in South Florida to call her daughter in Norway, almost daily. HOWEVER, at some times, especially weekends, it locks the video and suffers loss of audio, or dropped calls.
    I SUPPOSEDLY have the fastest Comcast internet connection available. Which she connects to via G wireless from her aged notebook to my N router hard wired (cat5) to the Comcast modem. A few years ago there was talk that the internet pipe to south Florida was inadequate. Any other thoughts??
    pessimist
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

      @pessimist Comcast has never really been very good, from what I've heard. I prefer Cox when it's available.

      And the person with the fastest machine and the best connection should start the calls when going multi-way.
      CobraA1
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Skype 5.0 bumps up group video calling to 10 users at once

    The high bandwidth footprint of Skype has been a concern by many users. You may like to try out Video Calling (by uniRow) which is also available as a Facebook application. It is purely browser based and works from anywhere in the world. It allows group video chat between 4 people. Give it a shot - www.facebook.com/videocalling .
    fbvideocalling
    Reply Vote
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