LONDON: When 3G phones started in Japan in 2001, a BBC report waxed lyrically about how users of “this revolutionary phone will be able to see pictures of the people they are talking to”. They reached Britain a few years later, but I have to admit that not only have I never seen anyone using the video facility the only unique feature of a 3G phone but I don’t even know anyone who has. Is this proof that videophoning is just one of those technologies that is constantly predicted but never arrives? Actually, no. Videoconferencing is now coming at us from every direction except the mobile, thanks to routing calls through the internet which is free if you have a broadband connection. The most successful net-telephony system is Skype, and if your computer has a built-in web camera you can see and talk to anyone in the world similarly equipped for nothing. Like so much else on the net we take it for granted, but for me it is still one of the wonders of the world. A few days ago I had a videoconference with someone in Hanoi for nearly an hour for nothing. Some multiplayer games or virtual worlds such as Second Life also have their own free web phone facility, not to mention eBay - which owns Skype or community videoconferencing services such as the fascinating seesmic.com. It probably won’t be long before all the social networks such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have free videoconferencing as well. Who would want to be a conventional telephone operator then?

Corporations, however, prefer high-quality secure networks for sensitive company business. Last week I had a go with WebEx, which claims 61 per cent of the web conferencing market with 100,000 meetings a day. It enables up to six people around the world to be on at once (with their heads showing on the screen). The group leader can, say, put a spreadsheet up which covers the screen, enabling participants to work on it live. It was impressive it ought to be as Boeing uses it to design parts of the 787 but then at $375 a month it is definitely for corporations not individuals, who should look instead to a new generation of start-ups such as dimdim.com which enable you to share pictures, videos and documents for nothing as part of a videoconference. It uses open source, operates entirely on the web and there is nothing to download to your desktop as with Skype. I tried it a few months ago and found it surprisingly easy to use. There is a paid-for enterprise version to help investors to get their money back.

But the Rolls-Royce of this market is so grand it is called telepresence rather than videoconferencing. There are a number of players including Tandberg, HP and Sky’s Easynet but I decided to ask Cisco for a demo. I found myself in a room with a large oval table. A button was pressed and suddenly people appeared on two out of the three adjacent screens situated on the opposite side of the table, life-sized in high-definition with no lag, as if we were in the same room so no movement or gesture went undetected. Skype it is not. Their voices were less loud if they were seated further away and, eerily, when I caught someone’s eye there was a frisson of embarrassment, as in real life. Spreadsheets and documents can be worked on in a window below the desk. At $299,000 for a basic 3-screen kit, it is not a giveaway but it is clearly attractive to corporations. Cisco claims that in-house use has already saved it $60m in reduced travel and hotel costs etc, thereby reducing its carbon footprint. There are hopes that soon as high-definition television arrives and screens get larger then a similar experience will be available cheaply at home through a set-top box. Doubtless, by then, someone will produce a free version. Maybe there will even be a mobile phone version but I wouldn’t bet on it.—Dawn/ The Guardian News Service