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by r3m6 4964 days ago
Skype is peer to peer. That this THE clever invention that put them ahead of all competing services when they launched. They can scale without any significant additional bandwidth or server costs.
2 comments

This is true only for Skype to Skype connections. Calls that have to reach The PSTN[1] need to be routed through telephony servers somehow, exposing the possibility to cause some stress on Skype's servers as FrojoS mentions.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_switched_telephone_netwo...

Most of the data may be peer-to-peer, but the infrastructure is more centralized since Microsoft bought them. http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/05/skype-replaces-...