Free Long Distance Digital Audio/Visual Communication

AT&T introduced the “Picturephone System" in 1964, you can read about it at this website:

 

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-that-Bell-now-AT-T-had-video-telephone-service-in-1964_id59374

 

AT&T charged $160.00 per month in 1964 [equivalent to $1228.55 per month in 2014] and of course only a few businesses could afford those prices, so it was a technology that never caught on with American society.

My Wife and myself originally signed up for Skype a few of years ago because our younger son was going to be spending several months overseas and we all wanted to be able to communicate with each other over that vast distance.

Well, being a person that doesn't want to put all their eggs in a single basket, I investigated what other FREE video services were available to a internet user.

Well there are three (3) FREE services that offer video & talking services over the internet;

 

1.) Google Video/Chat

 

2.) ooVoo

 

3.) Skype

 

{Did You KNOW that ooVoo Software System gives the users FREE 12 person video conferencing? Could be IDEAL for organizing family reunions, investment club meetings, and/or such!}

I recently made a video phone call via “Skype” with a good friend that I have known for 56 years that now resides 3000 miles away in California over the internet for FREE {costing really part of my monthly ISP fee} and I also recently happened to send an email to a U.S. Army Primary Flight School classmate, someone I have not seen or spoken to in forty-five (45) years, and then he placed a video/chat notice to me via Gmail and we spoke via "Google Video/Chat" for a good three quarters of an hour; he was in Germany and I was in the USA. It was very nice catching up with him about how our lives have transpired since serving together at Ft. Wolters, TX in 1969, also for FREE {again costing really part of my monthly ISP fee}. Finally, I also have video chatted with 'computer club' friend of mine that lives in the mid west using "ooVoo" software.

Anyone that has family and/or friends several hundreds of miles to several thousands of miles away, then I suggest that if it is at all possible, internet users should probably join each of these services to be able to hold voice and video communications with those friends. The reason I think that the prudent user should have ALL three (3) is because one never knows when one of the particular services may have an outage; it is always good to have a couple of back-ups!  

 

These internet visual communication services fits right into my new saying, "If its FREE, then it is for ME!"

The only equipment cost, other than my computer system, was $20.00 for a middle of the road 'Macally' web-cam bought on sale through "Amazon" several years ago.

 

The internet has really opened up the world of digital audio/visual communication to the general public way beyond anything that could have been imagined in the old analog audio/visual communication world first tried by AT&T. The world probably can thank DARPA and Steven Sasson, for by society combining their two discoveries has been the key to widespread digital audio/visual communication!