My brothers' wifes niece has moved to Australia taking her little daughter who they and the childs great grandmother have grown very attached to.
What would they need to to speak to and see them over the internet
They have nothing at the moment but I may be able to get them a laptop and would one of those dongles work for receiving a video link

Myself and them are not computer savvy

They would work derek but some of them get interuptions, ie: 3 mobile have gone crap since i used it 2 years ago, but a laptop with a webcam would work fine, some come with HD 720p cameras now which are superb quality

thanks ste
Won't be a new laptop or pc
Have to wait for my mate ( he usually changes his laptops every few months and gives me first option on them)

you can always buy a webcam, pretty cheap nowadays

3g dongles are quite good these days but not sure how much data a webchat uses. Tho if you do get a laptop there always wifi hotspots librarys,maccy ds and many more.

My sister has a permanent set up link to America and it just took a web cam and a live chat link her kids get to talk to there cousins in Vegas every day

I vid with our Sis in Canada using MSN and a webcam, more than adequate.

Are any of the above suggestions the same as something called skype, think thats how its spelt.

I use skype all the time

it's great and my 720p cam looks mint on it. It's kinda better than MSN as you actually make the other persons computer ring to get thier attention. Voice and video chat together is great. And the best bit is it's tottaly free!

You can get webcams off eBay delivered for £4. That's with an intergrated mic and LED lights if your in the dark (you choose if they are on or off)

I had a go on chat roullette in work with a wireless 3g dongle and it wok fine however I am not sure just how much data chat uses via video so you mind end up with a bill or running out of credit quickly. Can they get a phon Line connection?

Agree about Skype - we use it all the time to keep in touch with our relatives in England. Calling PC to PC it's completely 100% FREE - and voice and video quality is very good, waaay better than a regular phone.
You can also use it to call from PC to phones most anywhere (not free but extremely cheap, esp. to landline phones) as they only charge you local (in-country) rates regardless of where you are actually calling from. I think we pay about 0.2 of a CENT (not dollars!) a minute to call landline phone numbers in the UK from our PC via Skype (compared to ~30 cents a minute from a normal USA phone!)
Wouldn't use anything else now...
<usual disclaimers apply - no connection with Skype blah blah blah...>

Hi, I noticed a poster suggested a 3g card (dongle for internet). I don't think these allow VoIP (Skype or similar). You would probably have to look into it. My little sis has one on the 3 network and it says VoIP is not supported. They allow video chats on MSN though.

Seems as if Skype is your best bet, or as a second option MSN messenger sometimes refered to as "Windows live messenger" My sister lives in Auz, and we chat on MSN messenger.