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Wireless Videophones: Now You See Them, Now You Don't

By Teri Robinson
Wireless NewsFactor
August 21, 2002
http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/19103.html


With the rollout of 3G networks and the lure of multimedia messaging services, the future of videophones may be at hand -- as long as the carriers can agree on a standard, that is.
Desktop videophones dazzled visitors to the 1964 World's Fair in New York, spawned predictions of widespread use in 20 years time and, after a few well-spaced moments of glory, faded nearly completely from the average caller's radar screen. Will the same happen to wireless videophones? If not for MMS, the answer might be yes.
After all, some of the same problems exist today. Delays in transmission cause images to stutter across the small screens, making the video way too inferior to attract the business crowd. And the phone units themselves are costly, pricing the grandparents who would love to look adoringly upon their grandkids right out of the marketplace.

"It's pretty much a pipe dream and is not going to happen any time soon," Isaac Ro, an analyst with the Aberdeen Group, told Wireless NewsFactor. "It's hard enough to get great quality service for your regular cell phone."



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Real-Time Video Not Likely
He predicted that video would not become prevalent on wireless phones for five years -- or more. "How many people do you know that have a videophone on their desktop?" said Ro. Still, the wireless industry remains keen on the future of videophones, pointing to applications -- from videoconferencing to downloading movie trailers to augmenting text messages -- that will appeal to consumers and, possibly, business.

"There [will be] a few critical applications for people who really need it, but it will be a limited market," said Ro. He explained that users are not likely to spend an extra US$30 per month to "have spotty video for trailers," though.

No Shortage of Phones

Wireless videophones are getting a lot of attention these days, in part because carriers are rolling out 3G networks that will deliver the kind of high-speed wireless that supports video applications in Japan and Korea, and manufacturers are promoting handsets that can run them.

Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sanyo are among the vendors rolling out handsets that blend voice and image. Where they may find a pot of gold is in MMS (multimedia messaging service). "You can snap a picture and send it along with a message," said Ro.

That is precisely where Motorola sees a burgeoning market. The company is set to release what company spokesperson Sue Frederick calls the "first 3G device," the A830 phone "that will have a camera attachment that can capture video."

Video is supported any time a user is within the embrace of a 3G network. If the user moves outside the 3G, he or she can benefit from standard cellular service for voice calls. Frederick stressed that the new A830 phone is "robust," a must-have if video is to bloom in the wireless arena.

Text-Video Messaging

Motorola Venture, the company's venture capital arm, also has invested in PacketVideo to provide multimedia solutions for some of its 3G wireless communication devices. Under the terms of a recent agreement, certain 3G Motorola devices will include video playback capability via PacketVideo's pvPlayer, as well as video capture and encoding capability via PacketVideo's pvAuthor, which enables two-way video communication.

Denise Crew, a spokesperson for Nokia, told Wireless NewsFactor that Nokia believes that MMS "is where wireless video will be deployed quickly." There is a clear benefit, she noted. "You can really enhance a text message with a video and an audio file."

Augmenting Barry Bonds' 600th home run with a picture and the roar of the crowd, she said, "is quintessential MMS. So much more comes to life than a text message or voice call."

Samsung, too, has released an SCH-X200 phone that features a 12-line color LCD screen. It can play MPEG video and features a WAP (wireless application protocol) browser.

Very, Very Far Away

NTT DoCoMo launched its 3G service in Tokyo last year, unveiling a $600 video phone, the P2101V, equipped with a camera and a color screen intended to handle videoconferencing applications but, for now, aimed at MMS.

While Nokia's Crew sees MMS "coming to deployment in the next quarter," she notes that full-fledged real-time video over wireless phones, while "way cool," is "very, very far in the future."

Among the problems holding it back is standardization. "All [vendors] must agree on standards so we can be more competitive and offer the consumer a better experience," said Crew.

And if vendors have any illusions that the U.S. market will mimic Japan, they may want to reconsider. "It's a closed market -- all the phones are DoCoMo," said Ro. And, while DoCoMo had signed about 20,000 subscribers to its 3G service by the end of 2001, only a small percentage were actually using the P2101V phone.