Are you old enough to remember when video phones were the “wave of the future”. For decades video phones popped up everywhere from Sci-Fi movies to cartoons. Some of you may remember George Jetson talking to Jane via his ultra futuristic video phone. Remarkably, the first video phone was actually invented in 1955 and was known as the “Photo Phone” however it was extremely slow as you can imagine and very expensive thus was never rolled out. And even before the “Photo Phone” AT&T back in 1927 demonstrated a one way picture phone.
In 1970 AT&T rolled out the “Picture Phone” which was the first video phone offered to consumers however it was again very expensive and with very few customers it fizzled out around 1974. They took another stab in the early 90’s but as was the case with their previous two attempts the cost kept consumers away.
A myriad of other companies including Panasonic have made attempts at tackling the consumer video phone market to no avail.
Commercially, Intel was the industry leader with their Intel ProShare Conferencing Video System 500 launched in 1995. Two years later they only had 50,000 users and today theyno longer support the product.
Finally, someone MAY have gotten it right!
ACN, a direct seller of communications products launched the Iris 2000 Video Phone a couple of years ago (not sure about the exact date) via their distributor network. Initially, people were skeptical however, contrary to previous attempts by other companies their Iris 2000 video phone seems to have taken hold. The difference between then and now seems to be better technology and price point. Originally the cost for the phone was $200 then $149 another drop to $99 and recently they began giving the phone away free with their VOIP phone service which is $29.99 per line per month for unlimited phone service and requires a 2 year contract.
ACN has since released a new version, the Iris 3000 which features a large, high-resolution digital screen with light-adjusting sensor and enhanced phonebook.
