Video Telephone Options

Video Telephone Options
Video telephones, as the name suggests, are some form of device that acts and sometimes
looks like a telephone with the added feature of performing video. We mentioned earlier
that to separate the terms, use video telephone to describe a device that looks like a traditional
telephone with a video screen and videophone to describe units that do not look like a tele-
phone. Video telephone come in two types:
■
Video telephones that require a VoIP service provider
■
Video telephones that do not require a VoIP service provider
Selecting a Computer or Dedicated Videophone Device ? Chapter 5
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Video Telephones That Require a Service
The video telephones that are linked to a VoIP service provider require you to have a
broadband connection, which they all need, but also that you subscribe to their speci?c
VoIP service and join their video call service plan.This type of service adds cost and
requires that all sides that want to participate in the video call must subscribe to the same
service provider and use a compatible video telephone device. Packet8,ACN, and Vonage
are three such providers that offer a video telephone option.You have to sign up for their
monthly VoIP service, which costs roughly US$25 to US$45 per month; purchase one
video telephone per side; and pay for the video call service option. Packet8 costs roughly
US$19 per month, the ACN video call option is free, and Vonage has not announced its
pricing plan.These vendors' services add costs to the video call and also lock you into a
single VoIP provider's service, since all parties must join the same service to place video calls
with one another.
I do expect this to change in the future as the providers open up their systems to allow
video calls between similar devices and VoIP systems, whoever your provider might be.This
will take a year or two to happen in my opinion, as demand creates the investment for gate-
ways to interconnect Vonage and Packet8, for example.The technology is available; the VoIP
providers just have to make the investment to provide a gateway to add this option. In my
opinion, if vendors want video telephones to be more successful, they should consider this
interoperability of video calls so that people can have a choice of providers just as they do
now for their telephone service. Packet8 and Vonage are the leaders in this space, so they
would be the ?rst logical partners to connect their video call solutions.To lock the users
into using one provider is a mistake and will slow the adoption of video telephone use.

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