__1964: __The Bell Picture Telephone The service establishes the world’s first videophone call and is met by New York World’s Fair scientific consultant William L. Laurence. Anaheim Bulletin Editor-in-Chief Donald Shaffer at Disneyland.
The video chat was part of a large public demonstration at the World’s Fair that included seven call stations. New Yorkers could talk to Disneyland visitors at a similar location at the California theme park. “Long lines formed at both ends as consumers clamored to see the phone of the future,” wrote Steve Schnaars and Cliff Wymbs in an article on the history of videophones.
But the clamor died down soon after, even though most users had good things to say about the Picturephone, which had a video camera, screen, push-button phone, speakers and a power supply. The Picturephone even allowed users to control whether the video was transmitted to the person they called. The sound and quality were good and people generally liked seeing the person they were talking to.
But not even the company’s employees were totally convinced. “We cannot expect to offer Picturephone service for residential and commercial offices in the near future, but we are hopeful to offer the service in the coming months on a test market basis,” a Bell engineer told star news in 1964.
Commercial service began on June 25, 1964 at call booths in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Interest was lukewarm at best. For starters, customers needed to schedule their allotted 15 minutes of screen time in advance, making video chat almost as tedious as a doctor’s appointment. Only three cities had access to the futuristic phone, so its reach was quite limited. Furthermore, it was also incredibly expensive. A 3-minute video call from New York to Washington, DC costs $16, or the equivalent of about $120 today.
The following year, AT&T cut prices nearly 50 percent to encourage customers to make video phone calls. When that strategy failed, the company moved the video booths to buildings owned by Bell. That didn’t help either.
Finally, in 1968, the company raised the white flag and admitted that customers were not interested.
Sources: Various.
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