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Video calling ready to take leap into mainstream

Video calling ready to take leap into mainstream

By Kevin J O'brien, New York Times | Updated: 5 June 2012 02:20 IST

Highlights

Video telephony, for decades a fixture of science fiction, cartoons and comics - the police detective Dick Tracy and his two-way wrist TV included - is poised to take a leap in popularity this year, experts say, as an era of face-to-face communication beg

Dick Tracy, your time has come back.

Video telephony, for decades a fixture of science fiction, cartoons and comics - the police detective Dick Tracy and his two-way wrist TV included - is poised to take a leap in popularity this year, experts say, as an era of face-to-face communication begins to replace the century-old voice call.

Demand for video calling services like Apple's Facetime, Skype and Fring, has skyrocketed over the past two years, analysts said, thanks to faster wireless networks, smarter phones - including some you can wear on your wrist - and the affinity of a generation raised on social networking.

For now, video calling is a popular and growing niche technology, but some experts expect it to spread more rapidly as the broader public adjusts to what many still consider its intrusive nature.

"We are going to see a dramatic spike in video calling in 2011 and beyond," said Ronny Haraldsvik, the vice president for global marketing at Byte Mobile. The company, based in Santa Clara, California, makes software that 125 mobile operators in 60 countries use to transmit video in a limited bandwidth. "We do think it is going to come rapidly, virally."

Skype, which pioneered Internet-based telephony, began offering video calls on Apple's iPhone on January 1. On the first day, Skype users placed one million video calls from their mobile phones. In 2010, 40 percent of Skype's calls, an estimated 70 billion minutes, were generated by video telephony between computers.

Tony Bates, the Skype chief executive, said he expected a significant amount of video calling to move to mobile phones. In the first two weeks of January, 10 million people downloaded Skype's free iPhone video calling application.

"How close are we to calling moving to video? We are getting a lot closer," Mr. Bates said. He said he saw it as a natural enhancement to current modes of communication, like instant messaging, e-mail and voice calling.

Skype has also entered into a video calling partnership with Verizon Wireless, the largest US carrier. At the Mobile World Congress industry convention, set to begin Monday in Barcelona, Skype plans to introduce a new application that allows for video calling from mobile phones to television sets.

"We see that people have a desire to collaborate with video," Mr. Bates said. "Habits and behavior are changing."

At Fring, a Skype competitor based in Tel Aviv, customers have booked more than 100 million minutes of video calls since November 2009, when Fring began selling its video calling service for mobile phones.
The service, which runs on Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Nokia's Symbian operating systems, is popular not only in North America and Europe, but in Russia and emerging markets like India and South Africa, said a co-founder, Avi Shechter.

"We are seeing huge winds of change," Mr. Shechter said. "Video is the cornerstone in the way people are going to communicate using their mobile phones. I think this is only the beginning of a huge trend."
Investors are also beginning to focus on the technology and its commercial potential.

In December, The Carlyle Group, the world's second-largest private equity group after Goldman Sach's private equity arm, bought Syniverse, a Tampa, Florida software maker whose products include software that enables video calls to take place between different operators, for $2.6 billion.

Adjusting for differing technical standards used by operators around the world is key to the future of video telephony, said Tony Holcombe, the Syniverse chief executive.

"In just a generation, the telephone has gone from a voice device to a texting device to a camera-picture device," Mr. Holcombe said. "A key driver to the technology is helping operators, whose systems typically use varying standards, seamlessly transmit video calls between each other."

James Bruce, the lead mobile strategist at ARM, based in Cambridge, England, and one of the world's largest makers of chips and associated software for mobile phones, said video calling technology will have to offer more to consumers than simply a pixel-heavy replacement for voice calls.

"I think it is going to be very much about sharing what's around you visually," said Mr. Bruce, who is based in San Jose, California. "There is no novelty in the familiar friend or family member, but in showing something new that they want to see."

At the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen, Germany, where researchers developed the MPEG audio file format and video software technology in video conferencing systems sold by Cisco, one engineer anticipates a youth-driven wave of video calling.

"Video will be more intrusive, but I don't think it will be a fatal obstacle," said Manfred Lutzky, a group manager for audio communications at Fraunhofer. "Many young people publish their entire lives on Facebook. Video telephony would be a perfect addition."

There have been many attempts to popularize video calling over the past decade, Mr. Lutzky said, but wireless networks were either too slow or phones not sophisticated enough to allow for seamless communication. But those technical issues, he said, have been largely overcome.

But several obstacles remain before video calling goes mainstream.

One is the ability of wireless operators to handle the surge in video traffic on their networks, and whether widespread use is affordably priced. Apple's FaceTime, which made its debut last year on AT&T's network in the United States, was limited to Wifi because of fears the demand would overwhelm its wireless network, already straining to accommodate iPhone users.

The growing move by many operators to eliminate flat-rate calling plans could discourage people from making video calls. But the main obstacle appears to be whether consumers will be just as willing to answer a video call as a voice call.

Olaf Swantee, an executive vice president at France Télécom-Orange, said video telephony would gradually make its influence felt but that he expected Orange to remain primarily a voice-based network for the forseeable future.

"As we introduce new ways of communicating, such as messaging through social networking or video calling, we don't think the other ways of communicating will go away," Mr. Swantee said. "The traditional phone call and SMS will continue for years to come."

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