NEW YORK -- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. introduced Monday what it said was the world's first full-color motion videophone that will let home telephone customers send and receive video images as well as spoken words for the same price they now pay for ordinary phone calls.
A company executive said somebody could buy the new VideoPhone 2500 at a store, bring it home, plug it into a standard wall jack and be able to immediately make video phone calls without any special phone lines or additional equipment.
AT&T said it would begin selling the VideoPhone 2500 in May at its 450 AT&T Phone Center retail stores nationwide for $1499, and plans to sell it through major retailers like Sears, Roebuck & Co., Circuit City and other chains by mid-summer.
The telecommunications giant also will lease the new videophones for about $30 a day through its stores, will allow customers to make video calls from those stores for a price to be determined, and will place the new video phones in public places like hotel lobbies and airport lounges.
AT&T introduced its breakthrough invention at an elaborate high-tech press conference at its corporate headquarters in New York, with reporters in both New York and Washington able to question a battery of company executives.
The 90-minute presentation included demonstration video calls to Washington and to Los Angeles, where actor Robert Wagner and his daughter Kate spoke to the New York news media. It also featured a short video projecting what kind of video communication services might be available by the year 2001, linking videophones, portable cellular technology, computers and electronic data bases.
'A whole generation of young people,' who've grown up in an atmosphere of sophisticated electronic devices 'are demanding video technology, and I believe that by the year 2001, visual communications will become as important to consumers as wireless communications,' declared Kenneth M. Bertaccini, the president of AT&T's Consumer Products division.
Steven Clemente, the general manager of AT&T's consumer product video business unit, noted that the nearly $1,500 per-unit pricetag represented 'a dramatic price breakthrough' relative to the price of video teleconferencing systems now used by business, which he said 'is up in the tens of thousands of dollars.'
The company said it expects that price to gradually come down over the next several years, as happened with such devices as personal computers, VCRs and camcorders. At the same time, it said the VideoPhone 2500 was only 'a first step' toward more advanced video technology products.
AT&T said it would be working, for example, on making VideoPhone 2500 compatible with more sophisticated teleconferencing equipment, and with business telephone systems, such as PBX networks. It is not currently compatible.
VideoPhone 2500 is about the size and has the look of an integrated telephone-answering machine set up -- but a small module on top of the unit includes a small screen measuring about 3.3 inches diagonally, on which the user can see the calling party. Just above the screen is a small camera lens, which AT&T said can send a clear picture of a subject between 1 and 9 feet away.
The screen transmits an image at a speed of up to 10 frames a second -- somewhat slower than a live-action picture on television, giving a curious, slow-motion look to movement. Once a call is made, the callers on each end touch a 'video' button, which activates the two-way video feature.
If someone does not wish to appear on screen, a manual shutter can be pulled down over the lens at any time. If the other party does not have a videophone, the call remains a standard voice-only phone call.
AT&T executives declined to say how much it cost 'Ma Bell' to develop the new video technology, noting that it had been experimenting with videophone technology as far back as the 1960s.
The black-and-white PicturePhone system it developed then never did catch on commercially, because the hardware was prohibitively expensive and because it could not use conventional telephone lines.
Clemente explained that previously, regular phone lines could not take video signals, but new video compression technology developed by Compression Labs Inc., of San Jose, Calif., made it possible to use standard phone circuits.
AT&T said it is 'committed to open standards' of videophone technology, and is willing to license its new system to other manufacturers -- 'including some which would usually be called our rivals,' one executive said -- in the United States, Europe and Japan.
The communications giant says it will mount an extensive campaign to sell its new VideoPhone to consumers, using network TV spots, print advertising and other promotional methods.
