I've written about video conferencing and videophones several times over the years and have often wondered why such visual comms systems have never really taken off. Looking back, there have always been technological hurdles preventing widespread use, but these difficulties seem to be disappearing.

Now Paul Gullett, regional director at video systems specialist Tandberg, says that these technical problems – which have included picture quality, the difficulty of configuration, and firewall issues – are either solved or are close to a solution.

Video conferencing has been slow to take off because people thought it was hard to use and provided poor-quality communications. Recent innovations such as the high-performance H.264 video codec may have fixed technical difficulties but the perceptions have still to change.

Tandberg has been working to make visual communications easier to use by linking the video terminal with the PC.

Integration with calendaring software should make it easy to schedule video conferences, but in the past users have lacked a system to indicate when colleagues are available for a video call. Instant messaging (IM) now provides a good solution and has the added benefit that a couple of quick messages can get both parties ready. The IM client is also a good place to store contact details such as IP addresses etc.

Gullett points out that the traditional ISDN-based conferencing systems are fading away in favour of IP-based communications.

Typically, ISDN is only used to reach contacts who do not have modern IP equipment. Though ISDN has worked quite well it has suffered from unreliability, particularly when several channels had to be combined to provide sufficient bandwidth.

Gullett expects to see significant growth in inter-company visual communications now that it is easier to set up calls. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in teleworking, and the latest terminals can support high-quality video connections via standard residential broadband services. The use of video conferencing will continue to grow because visual communications can significantly improve productivity, and Gullett believes this will lead to a change in the way we do business.

Tandberg predicts that mobile visual communications will also be a growth area and has developed its 3G Gateway to allow mobile users to connect with IP and ISDN video systems.

Gullett says that directory services could be improved to further encourage the take-up of visual communications. Currently, it isn't always easy to find out if a business partner has video and then determine how to make the connection. The Internet Domain Name System (DNS) can help but other central directory services should be set up.

The big unknown is whether residential users will take to visual communications. Software already exists to implement high-performance video on PCs equipped with a decent webcam and a broadband connection.

We seem to be close to a new phase of growth in video.