The History of the Video Phone

Sonya — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:01:47 +0000

Often people refer to Video Phones as space age or cutting edge technology, but the idea of a video phone has existed for decades. Today’s video phones are far more advanced than video phone designers of the past could have ever dreamt of but as long as there has been a telephone there has been the idea of a video phone. In fact, companies started researching the idea of making a video phone as early as two years after the invention of the telephone. In the late 1920s AT&T created the first known video phone, although the video portion of the call was only one way, so the caller could be seen by people far away but the caller could not see them. Herbert Hoover, before he became President, was the first person to test out the working AT&T video phone.

Video phones were used intermittently throughout both of the World Wars as a fast way for generals, military strategists, and politicians to contact each other but the phones were not ready for mass production commercial use at the time. The first commercially viable video phone came on the market in the 1960s. Kiosks containing video phones were set up in major cities like New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. But at that time it cost around 16 dollars to make a three minute video call and the public wasn’t that interested in them.

By the time the Internet came along consumers were becoming more interested in video phone technology. At first Internet speeds were too slow to support video and so the quality of video phone calls was poor. High speed Internet connections changed the video phone landscape and finally got consumers excited about video phones. Today video phone use is growing by leaps and bounds, both for business and personal use, because of the affordable cost of the actual video phone and the widespread availability of high speed Internet connections.

Experts in the technology industry speculate that video phone use will become even more common in the coming years as travel becomes more difficult and people become more spread out. Businesses will need video phone technology to stay connected to clients and make sales, and families will be using video phone technology to stay in touch with friends and family they can’t afford to visit or don’t have time to visit. With the quality and affordability offered by today’s video phones it’s no wonder people are investing in video phones more and more as a way to stay connected to the world.

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The History of the Video Phone