Videophones Make a Push
Into the Home Front

Electronics companies have started coming out with videophone products geared toward consumers instead of business executives, offering a new range of options for making face-to-face calls.

The wide availability of broadband Internet access and lower prices for the devices have driven more consumers to consider using videophone technology. Many families, for example, now use Web-connected video devices to communicate face to face with relatives and friends who live out of town or abroad.

A majority of consumers, however, remain reluctant to embrace videophones. The market for stand-alone videophones is still small in the U.S., industry analysts say, mainly because many customers don't feel comfortable talking in front of a camera. Still, the wider availability of products may entice more people to use video while talking on the phone. Viseon Inc., a Dallas-based maker of video telephones, has recently given its traditional-looking VisiFone a makeover, recasting the device as a smart phone that can also give movie trailers and display news headlines. The phone can also be hooked up to a television set to allow users to videoconference with more than one person at once.

VisiFone: a digital home telephone; Price: $399; Manufacturer: Viseon Inc.

The phone, which has been tested with different U.S. carriers since last July, will be available at lower prices through U.S. phone companies later this month. Customers will be able to buy the phone at $99 when bundled with a carrier, but they have to sign up for a two-year contract with the telephone company. Until now, when users buy the device without the service, they pay $399. The company hopes to sell more phones when the device becomes available through phone companies.

"The target market is really everybody with broadband," says John Harris, chief executive of Viseon.

Other consumer-electronics companies have also made special offerings. 8X8 Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., is selling its Packet8 DV326 videophone for $149. The broadband phone was selling for $499 two years ago. With the Packet8 broadband videophone, consumers can make unlimited video calling world-wide and unlimited audio calling to anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for a monthly flat rate of $20.

Sales of the Packet8 videophone have been growing rapidly as well. The company said it has about 10,000 videophone subscribers today, up from a thousand at the end of 2004. That is mainly because the technology has improved and the prices for the device and the service have dropped. The video-subscription fee for the Packet8 service is $20, down from $30 in 2004.

Video-equipped home phones enable callers to view real-time video of the person on the other line, provided that the other party is similarly equipped. Video calls are made through the Internet instead of regular telephone lines. Users hook up their videophones to a DSL or cable modem or home router, plug the power cord into the wall, turn the power on to the device and then dial a phone number, the same way they do with regular phone lines.

Videophone users need to have a broadband Internet connection and, in most cases, the same brand of videophones to be able to make video calls. When users make video calls, they only pay for high-speed Internet access and for using video and voice services. Regular phone lines aren't required. Consumers pay their unlimited video and voice-calling fee either directly to a videophone maker or to an independent video-service provider.

Other offerings include the Ojo videophone, which has a video-mail feature that enables you to record a video greeting that callers automatically receive when you don't answer your videophone. The Ojo phone also lets callers leave a video message when the person they are calling isn't available.

Plugged into a broadband Internet connection, the phone can only be used to make video calls to other Ojo users. The Ojo, which was developed by WorldGate Communications Inc., Trevose, Pa., costs $599. Consumers can buy the phone online from different retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. and from the company's Web site as well, but they have to subscribe to WorldGate for a video service. The videophone-subscription service costs $14.95 a month.

Most videophones look more or less like any other conventional telephones, but the Ojo videophone looks different from other traditional telephones. It has a larger rectangular color screen for sharing video with another Ojo with a tiny camera above it.

"It's really like a visit," says Jamie Press, WorldGate's vice president of marketing development. "When people get off the phone, they say it's really a nice visit."

Another new videophone is the i2eye DVC-2000 broadband videophone produced by D-Link Systems Inc., Fountain Valley, Calif. The phone, which has a built-in five-color LCD screen, was launched last July. Typically, users can make video calls to other i2eye phones. The phone, which can be purchased from the company's Web site as well as other retailers, costs $399. Unlike other videophones, the i2eye phone doesn't require a video-subscription fee.

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