The big three Canadian carriers have just completed interoperability tests for two-way video calling, which had previously been limited to only those who were on the same network. The standardization will also allow Canadians to make video calls outside the country.
Bell and TELUS first began offering video calling when they announced the launch of their HSPA network, although Rogers has been offering it since March ‘07. Right now the TELUS New Chocolate and E71 are their only video calling handsets, while Bell has the Omnia II, LG Xenon, and N97, and Rogers has the E71, N95, Diamond, and a bunch of others. Bell’s offer actually lets you make calls to Facebook, which is neat – the other carriers will need to find similar hooks to really push video calls.
The Vphone gave me some hope for the concept of video calling, and at at $5/month, it’s not prohibitively expensive, but I still have trouble believing that there’s mass consumer appeal to the function; maybe it’s the lack of a behavioural foundation to make video calling a part of our telecommunications culture, or the inevitable mix-ups that are bound to happen, but I’m dubious about the service taking off.
[via Bell]