Bug#419182: kiax: sound quality very poor compared to skype

[joshua at nirmalvihar.info]

Package: kiax
Version: 0.8.51.dfsg-2-1
Severity: normal

I can't figure it out. I have skype 1.3.0.53 and the sound quality for a 
test call is almost crystal clear. When I try to use kiax with 
iax.fwdnet.net, the sound quality is so bad as to be unusable.

Initially I suspected that I was getting poor sound quality due to 
network delay so I registered two computers on my local LAN with FWD. I 
called from one to the other. Now, if I understand FWD correctly, the 
audio data is routed directly between the callers (not through FWD) so 
this test should eliminate all network delay. Still, I found the sound 
quality unchanged -- very poor. I tried GSM, speex, and ULaw. I turned 
off all the audio filters and silence detection. It still sounded 
terrible.

Any suggestions would be welcome. I loath to use Skype because it is 
proprietary software and IAX should be superior.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.20.4-b2
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages kiax depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-7 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libgcc1                      1:4.1.1-21  GCC support library
ii  libgsm1                      1.0.10-13   Shared libraries for GSM speech co
ii  libportaudio0                18.1-4      Portable audio I/O - shared librar
ii  libqt3-mt                    3:3.3.6-2   Qt GUI Library (Threaded runtime v
ii  libspeex1                    1.1.12-2    The Speex Speech Codec
ii  libstdc++6                   4.1.1-21    The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libx11-6                     2:1.0.3-2   X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6                     1:1.0.1-2   X11 miscellaneous extension librar

kiax recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information