The history and background of video conferencing

Video conferencing in its early forms has been around much earlier than you might think. In 1964, a new device called the Picturephone was demonstrated at the New York World’s Fair. Even then it wasn’t entirely new: the idea of ​​uniting video and voice was first pursued in 1956 by AT&T. This was a huge step forward: instead of just hearing a person’s voice, you could also see it. And so the videoconferences began. It would be many years before it reached the incredible heights it has today: large groups of people can now communicate across the globe, whether in boardrooms or hospitals, and the flow of data, ideas, and visual presentations can happen instantly.

It was in 1970 that a commercial version of the Picturephone service was put into service in downtown Pittsburgh. AT&T executives were certain that in just ten years there would be more than a million Picturephones in use. However, they calculated without the cost. At over $160 a month, the Picturephone might still be affordable for some businesses, but it was out of reach for the average person. Add to that the fact that the equipment was bulky, difficult to use, and the picture so small you could barely see it, and it’s no surprise that the Picturephone wasn’t a huge success.

But the seed was already planted, and by the 1980s, other companies were working on developing a video conferencing product. 1982 saw the release of the first video conferencing system from Compression Labs. It was also huge and consumed an enormous amount of resources, which could trip 15 amp circuit breakers. Priced at $250,000, it was definitely out of reach for most companies, let alone the fact that using a connection costs $1,000 an hour. Even so, it was the only working video conferencing system on the market.

It would be four more years before PictureTel in Delaware launched an opposition product. It was substantially cheaper, at just $80,000 for the system and $100 an hour for lines. The race had started. In 1991, PictureTel teamed up with IBM to introduce a cheaper version, in which images were sent in black and white. This certainly lowered costs, but still not to a level that most companies were willing to pay. The big breakthrough was that this system was PC-based, and video conferencing was finally on its way to becoming widely available. It was still expensive, at $20,000 for the system and $30 an hour. The other drawback was that I also needed to use a conference room specially equipped for video conferencing. This meant that participants had to travel to the video conference room and also had to pay to use the facilities.

1992 was the year that video conferencing got caught up in the technology boom and an affordable option for the masses began to become a reality. AT&T introduced its new videophone, which is only $1,500. It was still expensive for the general public, but businesses were definitely starting to take an interest. Then came the Macintosh, with its CU-SeeMe system for the personal computer. Initially it had no audio, but the video component was excellent. In 1993 they added multipoint capability and by 1994 it was true video conferencing with audio and video.

Unfortunately, it was only accessible to Mac users, but the developers worked hard until they came up with a Windows-compatible version. Early versions had no audio, but in August 1995 Cu-SeeMe was available for Windows with full audio and video functionality. This was very important, because now someone could talk to another person anywhere in the world and still be sitting in their own office or home. Now that the benchmark had been set, more high-tech companies joined the race and the options for video conferencing software and equipment expanded. Microsoft joined in 1996, with its NetMeeting product, and now video conferencing was basically available to anyone with a computer at home.

VocalTec Surf&Call was also released in 1996, which was the first web-to-phone plugin. And by the year 2000, Samsung had developed the 3G video cell phone with MPEG-4 streaming. By streaming media, it can be read, heard, and viewed the instant it is delivered. Now it’s possible to video conference anywhere in the world for as little as $12 a month and the cost of a good phone. Industry giants like Yahoo and MSN have gone a step further and made the service free.