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Back in the mid 1960s, when AT&T (News - Alert) introduced the Picturephone, one of the first video phones made for the public, everyone thought the day was rapidly approaching when video telephony would become the primary method of communication. After all, Hollywood science fiction films had already predicted a future where everyone would talk face to face using television monitors – without the need for a telephone handset – and since we were working our way toward landing a man on the moon, hey, it didn’t seem all that far-fetched, right?

Fast forward 40 years to the present and video telephony is …well, basically still in its infancy. But at least it is making its way toward becoming “mainstream,” thanks to the fact that many corporations are now using IP communications for things like videoconferencing and collaboration – oh, and not to mention the fact that live two-way video is becoming increasingly common on the Internet.

One company which is helping to bring reliable yet affordable video communications to the marketplace is WorldGate Communications (News - Alert), maker of the popular Ojo video phone. The Ojo – a freestanding phone with an elevated screen that sits at face level - uses regular phone lines and/or broadband to deliver digital video in real time between two callers. Currently it is one of the only videophones on the market that is “affordable” (around $300 for the least expensive model) – and today it is probably used in private residences almost as much as it is used in company offices.

Central to the Ojo’s performance is the use of the H.264 (MPEG-4) video codec, a high-compression algorithm which lets the phone deliver a full 30 frame-per-second video stream over 100 kbps of bandwidth. By combining MPEG-4 compression with WorldGate’s proprietary “error-concealment” technology (which compensates for packet loss), the phone is able to deliver smooth, relatively error-free video through a fairly narrow pipe. Perhaps best of all, when an Ojo owner hooks his or her phone up to a broadband connection (whether DSL, cable or satellite), they can talk via VoIP to any other Ojo user worldwide for free – and for as long as they want. That’s because the phone itself includes all the processing and encoding technology necessary to transmit audio and video over IP.

Providing further affirmation that video communications are becoming more and more commonplace, WorldGate announced today that the Russian financial services company, Payment Systems, has signed an agreement to purchase 4,000 units of the Ojo - and this is just the initial order! Payment Systems will be furnishing the phones to its service customers in Russia and a number of the former block countries to facilitate live video communications.

The Ojo, which was first introduced in 2004, is a viable alternative for businesses seeking to deploy video communications in Russia - which lacks adequate broadband infrastructure in many regions. Because the Ojo can deliver video over copper legacy infrastructure, a user can set it up wherever there is traditional phone service – in other words, broadband is not a requirement.

Hal Krisbergh, chairman and CEO at WorldGate, said in a press release that the Russian market “is very well positioned to adopt Ojo as one of the new ways to communicate.”

“The progressive nature of the Russian market and economy seem well-suited to be one of our most successful endeavors,” he said, adding that the initial order of 4,000 phones from Payment Systems was a big win for the company.

The Ojo currently comes in two models, the original Ojo and the new, less expensive Ojo Shadow. Both can make regular phone calls (including VoIP calls) and the regular model comes with a cordless 2.4 Ghz handset.

The news follows WorldGate’s announcement in November that it had entered into a distribution agreement with Unimedya, Turkey’s leading provider of real time IP-based communication solutions and services, for distribution of the Ojo Video Phone and Ojo Video Phone Service. Unimedya provides its solutions to a variety of customers including the Ministries of the Turkish government, Turk Telekom and Hilton Turkey.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.