About 2 weeks ago my call to my father in Europe was dropped a few times. I thought it may be my network, but maybe not.

I teach piano on the internet and I got fed up with Skype problems years ago. Try Logitech VID instead. It has worked well, although sometimes there is too much traffic on the internet. When that happens I turn off my outgoing video and the sound is fine again. Free program. I especially like it because the defaults are set to privacy, i.e. only people you invite or accept invitations from will be able to contact you.

No.

I used a bunch last week without a problem.

My parents are always complaining about how slow skype is here in regional Western Australia. They're using it on a lappy with Vista .. I suspect it's their operating system and the ton of programs that start up in the background (when the lappy is turned on).

Thank you all for going to the trouble of answering.