4) Greater availability
Some countries ban Skype (i.e. UAE), some learners prefer MSN or Yahoo and many companies do not allow Skype for security reasons.
(Giselle Santos, AmericanTeacher, Heike Philp)5) Conferences
Conference like the ETCon would not have been possible on Skype.
(unknown)6) Plan B as in ‘back-up’
Internet communication technology is fragile and it is advised to always have two of everything. So, it is good to use MSN AND Skype or Skype AND Virtual Classroom. If one fails, one can use the other.
(Heike Philp)
Those are three rather weaker or non related arguments so I bundle my answer to them in this post.
Greater availability. If there is a ban in some countries then VoIP in general is banned and not only one service so MSN, Yahoo, ooVoo, Tokbox and all the others are also on the list. The problem then is that using a VoIP client is illegal and hence giving a class online using those applications might be illegal, too. The question is: should you get your student into a situation where he/she breaks a law or should you rather search for other solutions. Teachers should act responsibly, shouldn’t they?
If a learner prefers another VoIP tool (still no mention of virtual classrooms here) then the teacher should of course use the tool of preference / availability. Although I have to say that all my students switched to Skype at least for their language lessons. In this case we are back to the point of professional teaching as the same is true for the students. Most of the users of MSN or Yahoo use those tools for chatting with their friends and they have tons of them. So it is very possible that they get messages of those friends all the time during the lesson. Changing the VoIP application for the lesson in this case can actually increase the value as it can take place in a quiet atmosphere.
Conferences are not possible on Skype. True, they are not unless they would be very tiny ones. But for a conference I would rather use a webmeeting application than a virtual classroom although those are very similar to one another, of course. Plus this is of course a valid argument if conferences are exchanged with lectures. Lectures in front of big groups of 20 or more students are only possible in virtual classrooms as the setting is basically the same. The teacher stands in front of the students, holds his/her class and maybe gives a Q&A part at the end of the class. The slides are displayed on the white board but the students are silent for most of the time.
If we are talking about learning groups of 5 to max 10 people it is getting more difficult. The problem is still that most VoIP clients and virtual classrooms are not offering an environment that can handle natural interactions between those people. It is still the case that one has to speak after the other. A vivid discussion most likely ends up in delays and a lot of noice.
Internet technology is fragile. Well, not if you use Skype 
. Joking aside the vast majority of problems are not on the software / application side these days but on the infrastructure in general. Skype has done an awesome job to build in self regulating modules that make it possible to have a decent lesson even with students in countries with a weak infrastructure. For example if I talk to my contacts in North Africa or South America the problem is never Skype. It’s the cut of electricity or the break down of the communication network in general. And for that there is not plan B. So it’s not internet technology but the internet itself that is fragile. We will see a decrease in speed and connectivity because of the extended use of bandwidth for streaming videos and more people connecting to the cloud via mobile devices even at times were they did not use to before, on the way to work, during the lunch break, at a walk on the beach etc.
A virtual classroom on the other hand needs much more resources than a VoIP client by nature and hence it is more likely that your student has problems. The minimum is already a high speed internet connection not to talk about plugins, drivers, software or what ever. It is a higher barrier to access a live lesson and in 90% of all cases it is not necessary to have a class in a virtual classroom.
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