Smile: you're on Ojo!

Telecommunications Americas, March, 2004 by Jim Barthold

Like it or not, there's probably a video phone lurking somewhere in your not-too-distant future.

WorldGate Communications has been developing a product called Ojo and believes it has found the way to deliver high-quality video using the public Internet, albeit relying on a high-speed data network from a cable or DSL provider.

"We just did a call to Taiwan that allowed us to go over the Internet internationally and the quality was super," said Hal Krisbergh, WorldGate's founder, chairman and CEO.

This call followed an intercontinental demonstration during CES and was predicated on WorldGate's modification of MPEG-4's foundation H.264 video CODEC--WorldGate calls it enhanced 264--to squeeze data rates down to 150 kbps. That has caught the attention of Comcast, which is looking at the Ojo product as something that it might run over its high-speed data networks or as part of an advanced VoIP features package next year.

"Ojo has raised the bar because of supporting H.264," said Franklyn Athias, vice president of systems and technology in Comcast's Media Development group. "It's also a very sleek design. How usable it is, I don't know; that's why we do technical trials and usability studies."

Athias predicted that it will take "probably through the summer" for Ojo to become viable. "My assumption," he said, "is that the Ojo stuff will get there."

It's there, said Krisbergh, promising a full-scale product launch--including retail--by Q3.

"We've met the threshold, we're there, we can deliver high-quality video telephony anywhere in the world over the public Internet instantaneously," he said.

It might work on the public Internet, but if it's going to run on Comcast's piece of it, it's going to need the MSO's support, Athias said.

"We're looking at this from a service provider perspective," he said. "I believe others will launch video phone services on a broadband network and have no relationship to the service provider that owns the infrastructure, but we will always have the edge because we can turn the QoS on to provide a better video stream and higher capabilities than someone who has no control of the infrastructure."