CONVIVO Communicator is a synchronous voice over IP (VoIP) communication system designed to respond to poor or varying network performance. CONVIVO adapts to a network's performance both by configuring in real-time voice sampling parameters as well as by provisioning a variety of innovative user interfaces. User interface modalities facilitate turn-taking given a very high latency connection and basic messaging given an extremely low bandwidth connection. CONVIVO is designed to work given the network realities of many rural communities in the developing world.