You Will Never Guess What AT&T's Videophone Sold For In 1992

Ah, 1992. an extraordinary year. The cold war ended. Malnesota’s Mall of America is opened. Gold floated below $ 351 per ounce (now $ 1,750.00 in this paper). “Silence of Sheep” stunning Oscar. And AT&T launched the first sight in the future with the world’s first full color video.

And with only one ounce of gold, with today’s price, you can get it yourself. But only one.

Videophone 2500 looks like a modern button table that is equipped with a private video lens and a sophisticated 3.3-inch LCD screen. This effort is different from Picturephones which are still in the past because it uses the latest digital compression technology to reduce the bandwidth needed to send full motion videos through existing analog telephone lines that have been used. Just plug into the existing wall jack, and you are good to go without adding one cent to the phone call fee. This is all achieved using the default modem v.34 which transmits at a speed of 19.2 or 16.8 kilobit per second-shouting for the day.

With 10 ranking frames per second, the images are stuttered and rather blurred, but it is still true “movement” on the screen – the broad step of technology from only displaying static images. For the first time, you really can “visit Grandpa -nenek without leaving your home,” which is precisely what AT&T promised in promoting videophone to the masses, hoping it will sell like hot butter biscuits.

A costly new way to ‘reach out and touch someone’

Remember, mobile phones are still newborn gadgets that are not owned by everyone, and still one more decade from coming equipped with a camera. There is no such thing as skype, zoom, or facetime that allows people to easily “reach and touch someone” in real time when talking to them. That, quite simple, revolutionary technology for the time.

Unfortunately, the price of arms and legs. And maybe a few fingers. Initially, the unit sold for $ 1,599.99. But it’s really useless without someone having another videophone at the other end. But hey, AT&T works harder and easily lowering the price of $ 150 if you buy two or more than this troublemaker. Another option, according to CNN Business, is that you can rent one for $ 30 a day. If people have that kind of money, they can buy it directly.

Some marketing materials for the Videophone 2500 are the “Mandiri Display” button that allows users to see how they will look at your other parties before starting the call. Imagine really care about your appearance before starting a video call. Preposterous!

AT&T stopped selling videophone two years later due to lack of requests (through CNN).