Comments by "kd1s" (@kd1s) on "Debut of the First Picturephone (1970) - ATu0026T Archives" video.

  1. The thing about it is that while it was a marvel of engineering, Bell backed away from this rather quickly when she realized the 1MHz bandwidth necessary for the video signal would require a duplicate switching system for the video calls. Of course about a two decades or so later DSL came about and offered the necessary bandwidth.
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  2. I'd imagine the infrastructure to provide this service is no longer in place. I know Ma Bell realized they'd have to build an entire switching system for the video side using higher bandwidth channels and PicturePhone was quietly retired.
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  3. People weren't ready for it. And while Bell had the video phones to a high art, they realized they would have to build a whole different switching system for the video side of the call in parallel with the voice side. Too expensive!
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