skype

I use it, it's has as far as I know the best video for a free service. I use it to talke with my son and grandchildren. Very good quality and reliable.

I use it daily, as a tool for direct real time chats to the team in Africa, Europe and further abroad, it's invaluable.

for the issue of it locking up WiFi routers, this typically can be resolved by the setting in skype options, there is an option to allow port 80- and 443 for alternate connections.  unchecking this stops Skye acting as a SuperNode.

Stopping Skype acting as a supernode stops multiple connections through your WiFi router which the router would see as an issue and crash, or block.

Skype itself is a great tool, like I said, we all use it in house, and we all allow clients to reach us via skype, if my skype is on, I am available and the clients know they will get an instant response.

Video call once or twice a week with my parents back east.  Next best thing to being there in person.

2 years ago my brother in law and neice went to Peru on a mission trip.  We spoke with each other over Skype - was just like they were in the next room.  No time lag at all.

We live in Australia (for this year) and I talk to my family more now than I did when we only lived an hour away from them.  It's very easy for them to hop online and see that I'm online (since I work at home over here) and we'll spend an hour or so just chatting.  It really is the closest thing to having a face-to-face conversation.

I also use it as my phone back to the US.  We only pay $12.95 a month for the ability to call any phone in the US and landlines here in AUS.  We have found that it's worked out a lot better (and cheaper) than other alternatives such as Vonage.