As someone who works in the VoIP mobile client area for 7 years (though not for Skype) I have to be fair and say that this is unlikely to be Skypes fault.<p>They are known to use state of the art codecs so most likely the issue lies in the PSTN network that you are calling into.<p>For the out calling feature they are relying on Carriers all around the world for the VoIP -&gt; PSTN functionality.<p>It would be another thing if you said that VoIP -&gt; VoIP quality has dropped, here Skype has somewhat more control, although still not perfect control as they rely on the quality of Internet connection between caller and callee.