NY Times: Video Calling Is Going Mainstream, As Long As Price Stays Down

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Web Editor

Video calling is slowly moving from a science fiction fantasy to a daily reality for a lot of Internet users, The New York Times is reporting.

According to a new survey, the VoIP company, Rebtel, commissioned from Harris Interactive (News - Alert), shows that 14 percent of U.S. adults currently make video calls and 34 percent of them are willing to pay a fee for them, the Times reports.

With technologies like Skype (News - Alert) and its built-in video calling feature, as well as Apple's FaceTime and various other mobile video calling solutions, the market for video calling is becoming mainstream as the tools for making these calls are becoming more easily available, according to the Times.

The survey shows about a third of those Internet users who are making video calls are also willing to pay for it. According to the Rebtel (News - Alert) survey, the price for this feature can't be too high, the Times reports. Most users aren't willing to spend more than $10 per month for this, and 44 percent of those respondents who are willing to pay don't want to pay more than $5, the Times reports on the survey results.

Rebtel's CEO Andreas Bernstrom said, "This opens up a new, non-ad based revenue model for providers like Skype who are looking to monetize on their video services," said Rebtel’s CEO Andreas Bernstrom in the Times’ report.

In a related matter, TMCnet recently reported that mobile video chatting and conferencing has been a hot topic in the telecommunications space over the last few years. While the equipment is available, mobile networks do not have the bandwidth capacity to allow these products and services to be adopted on a widespread basis. With the recent advances in communications technology, consumers demand a higher level of video quality than mobile networks are currently capable of delivering, TMCnet reported.

For this reason, wired networks will continue to be a staple in the enterprise space, according to Rico Vitale, senior systems engineer at Enablence, a supplier of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) equipment and optical components.