Skype usually works great for making phone calls, but when I moved my office a few weeks ago people stopped being able to hear me. I finally traced the problem to my cordless phone that was now sitting near my wireless access point. I moved it 3 feet away and Skype call quality returned to normal. So if you are having trouble with Skype on a wireless network look for sources of interference.
I think you may have stumbled upon on of the disadvantages of trying to go all wireless. Not everything plays nicely with everything else in the RF ( radio) realm. Chances are your cordless phone was either treading directly on your 802.11 wireless network device or vice versa, or you were encountering harmonic interference inherent with any radio carrier device. As you got some performance, I tend to think the operating frequencies are just close enough that when base stations are located in proximity one desensitizes the other. Chances are both are in the increasingly crowded 2.3GHz band. Even if one was digital and the other analog, it is much like the laws of thermodynamics. Two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time. Like I tell my sound customers, wireless is sexy and convenient, but if you don’t have a legitimate need to move around or difficulty running cable, stick to wire. The signal will always be better, many fewer breakdowns, no chance of interference or interception, much cheaper. Wire is a faster pipe in most cases.
@Keith – I was able to fix it by moving the phone 3 feet away from the base station. I might be able to do switch the channel on the wireless access point, but I’m going to have to figure out which channels operate on which frequencies because i know there is some overlap.