All of my friends (and my only and favorite role playing group) live far away from me now. One of them still lives in the city, the other three are in Nicaragua.
We've spent great moments roleplaying together using roll20.net as our tabletop, however there's a recurring issue with the group: they get too bored when waiting for their turns and they get too dispersed and distracted, even using Savage Worlds as our favorite system.
We use the chat to roleplay as at least three of them have no access to webcam, so dealing with the turns has been a pain, since sometimes the players take forever to decide what to do, and they're against the "let somebody else take the turn" rule, they seem to have even more pressure this way.
They take 5 to 10 minutes to think and decide what to do and soon they start losing interest in combat. This never happens when roleplaying where everyone is active, but handling turns in combat and waiting for their action just seems to kill the fun.
Best Answer
I play online almost exclusively these days, using Mote. I DM two campaigns, and this particular issue comes up often enough.
First, you have to keep things interesting. Try to design combats with more than just "attack roll -> damage roll". It's not a simple task, but it's really important to make combats interesting. Add some ranged enemies, healing enemies, mages, etc. Throw in environmental hazards, or effects which occur between turns. Give the PCs a time crunch to win. Give them a reason to be concerned.
In terms of process, I have found that the method of forfeiting turns does help. If they take too long, they lose their turn. However, I found that rewarding them for taking swift actions is far more effective. I give my players a +1 circumstance bonus per five levels to any rolls they make during their turn if they begin taking actions within fifteen seconds. I call this bonus "seizing opportunities." It works phenomenally. That, plus some recommendation for the players to plan actions during someone else's turn, means that they are likely to have their plans ready and in motion within those fifteen seconds. The bonus is big enough to be worth striving for, without being so big that it's not worth sacrificing for the occasional tactical overview. Players are much more likely to confer with each other this way. This has sped up our gameplay immensely.
You can adjust the bonus, time limit, and everything else to whatever works for you. I just insist that rewarding players is a more effective motivator than punishing them. It also makes them feel good and have more fun. That is the most important thing.
EDIT: Now that I think of it, this is also a pretty effective way to speed up offline tabletop combat, for anyone else who might be doing one or the other or both.
EDIT EDIT: One other thing I should mention is that when playing through an online tabletop you usually have computing tools available. Take advantage of them! The human brain is great at lots of amazing stuff, like creativity, imagination, reason, and emotion. One thing it has a hard time with is mathematics. Fortunately, computers rock that stuff. It helps to shave more time off of a turn if you have as much action content (rolls, initiative order, etc.) hard-coded beforehand. Dice macros are a simple example.
On a non-computing basis, it also helps to have actions listed out in front of the player. I know there was a lot of hate around 4e's action system, but having a sheet of actions clearly delineated in front of the player was a huge advantage for newbies. Having some clear options in front of them helps remind them of what they can do, and thereby lets them make a decision sooner.
Naturally, you do not have to be as hard-and-fast as 4e. You can even go as simply as reminding the player of what they can do in your game, or give them some soft suggestions.