IChat AV 3 useless while traveling

Question

I have mumbled about this before, but it's with immense frustration after traveling around Europe, having high speed internet connections in various cities....and NEVER being able to successfully do a video chat with my wife and kid in the US, that I post this now!
Honestly, iChat AV, when it works, is fantastic. I use it routinely with my inlaws in Canada. But that's when I have complete control of the router, the ports, the firewalls, everything. Sadly, that's the only way it works.
Go to in internet cafe... Forget it. T-Mobile hotspot? Forget it. Hotel internet? Actually, it worked in one hotel where I've stayed — in Vancouver (and that was with iChat 2). But in Europe I've had no luck at all.
Apple, can you make iChat in such a way that it doesn't require 15 or so open ports on a router? Honestly, it makes your head spin when you try to set up a router.
Take Skype for example. I know it's only audio chat, VoIP, but it's worked in every hotspot and internet connection I've had. iChat AV 3 on the other hand was unable to do audio chat with the same connections (I actually tried iChat first, and moved to Skype only when I couldn't connect).
While the mantra of Apple's "It just works" is true with many things, it's definitely not true when you are traveling and you want to do an audio or video ichat.
By the way, the error I got in every occasion was "User did not respond". And since the wife's computer can video chat with our inlaws happily, I know the issue is with the European internet connections.

Answer 1

I completely agree with the above point.
It is in fact the simplest way to do it isn't it?
I mean it is easy to alweays talk in 'perfect world' scenarios but as we all agree the big wide computing world just isnt like that and ultimately Mac being the smarter of the players out there we would expect them to anticipate a little. Not what every conceivable Network setup might be worldwide - but simply what is going to give iChat AV users the best possible chance at making connections in most places.
If I can access the net with airport almost anywhere by simply turning it on and Skype can get it self working more often than not, then ultimately why should iChat AV be any different?
Put simply, why make it any harder than it actually has to be?
(Personally my issues with it are similar as I have come to realise that is impossible to get iChatAV (the AV bit) working on my Netgear DM602 Modem/Router unless I get an airport express/base station and run the Netgear connected in modem only mode).
Annoying, and counter-intuitive.. but there you go.
So I also think that Apple should allow iChat AV to work more easily into the existing world and be less finicky..
(And also let it work with other IM clients like MSN etc without too much messing around with Jabber etc)
That's my 2 cents!