History of Video Calls: From Fantasy to Flops to Facetime

A visual history of the science and sci-fi of phone calls you can see. (And, no, it didn't start with The Jetsons.)

AT&T Returns

Well, look who's back. By 1992, AT&T finally realized that an economical, potentially popular videophone must work over its regular phone network without any special connections. With the benefit of digital technology, the AT&T VideoPhone 2500 sent jerky, slightly off-sync color video at ten frames per second over regular phone lines. It was an exciting advance, but a single phone cost $1599.99 ($2,486.19 in 2010 dollars) and you could only call other VideoPhone 2500 owners. Yet another video telephone dropped off the market not long after its debut.

Photo: AT&T

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