Cingular to demo video calls at CES
It's been a long time in coming -- and even its latest upcoming equipment doesn't seem to support it -- but Cingular (or should we say AT&T?) wants everyone to know that video calling is still very much on its agenda. Demos of the feature, made possible by WCDMA's capability to rock voice and data simultaneously, will be taking place at AT&T's CES booth next week. We don't know the full lineup of handsets Cingular will be using for the exhibition or whether said equipment will make it into Cingular's lineup down the road, but one device we know will be shown is the LG CU500v, a video call-capable update to the venerable CU500. Yeah, that's right -- that six month old, HSDPA capable CU500 is obsolete. Some of us haven't even worn the new phone smell off our 8525s and BlackJacks yet, but we doubt they're updatable; no front-facing cam, after all.
Filed under: Handsets, Multimedia, LG, ATT
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shaun McKee @ Jan 5th 2007 5:45PM
WCDMA's ??? Do you mean UMTS?
Shaun McKee @ Jan 5th 2007 5:50PM
and the LG CU500 runs HSDPA? I thought only the 8525 was the only UMTS/HSDPA capable phone out there right now (U.S. Market). The tag of 3G only implies UMTS, not HSDPA which takes you up a couple hundred kbps. I'm either right or confused?
None12 @ Jan 5th 2007 6:03PM
For any short commings that Cingular / AT&T might have this is still a really cool feature to show off. Even if the end consumer doesn't get to buy a handset that supports this feature until the mid to late 07 year.
beanspants1 @ Jan 5th 2007 8:07PM
wcdma/umts/hspda are all more or less synonymous to the average user. all umts markets will be hspda compatible in time.
Darkknezz @ Jan 5th 2007 8:30PM
UMTS is based of wcdma (wideband cdma) which is a hybrid of a cdma/gsm technology. CDMA networks are more stable than gsm for wireless data.
Jordan @ Jan 6th 2007 12:11AM
For all you wondering about video calling, I have some info. I can confirm Cingular's video calling is only ONE WAY, not two way like in Europe and Asia. So you stream a live video to the other person during a normal phone conversation so both parties can talk, but only one can recieve and one can send video.
It is likely this service is going to be call cME video sharing. Of course, this was before the at&t-Bellsouth merger, so there is a possibility it could have changed.
This is why phones with HSDPA don't have internal cams like the v3xx because Cingular is waiting for HSUPA to launch 2 way video calling because it provides faster upload rates so it can acheive better quality than HSDPA video calling.
Cingular just likes to assure good quality.