How much bandwidth does skype use?

[phoney]

Googled it but couldn't find a definitive answer. All a bit vague.
I did find that even idle it's ticking over as it's keeping track of your online contacts. Wondered say how much a one hour video call uses and does a conference call use even more.
I unchecked the automatic start.
Made a couple of lengthy video calls just to try it out and as I'm on 10GB a month with BT I was wondering how many calls would make a major dent in this. I suppose I can always upgrade to Option3 but they gave me a one year contract Option1 at £10 a month and may as well see how that goes.
BT say they email you when you have used 80% of your allowance. You would have though you could check your usage on BT.com.

[mikkh]

They don't overcharge you for going over anyway - in fact it's very cheap

A friend of mine was charged something like a quid for going over his allowance and declined the option of getting a higher allowance to save him the same embarrassment in the future. what embarrassment, doh!

1 GB = 40 hours of 'normal' skype calls apparently (taken from their forums)

I would guess video calls to be a lot greedier than that though, and suspect about an hour a day would be pushing you close to your limit

[phoney]

Cheers mikkh. 1GB approx 40 hours is pretty good. The video is just a novelty anyway and probably only use it for someone you haven't seen for a while. All 'new' software has to be played with for a short period and then relegated to taking up space.