Telepresence 1936 style
The world's first videophone service was not American but German
By L.S.
THE earliest public videophone service was launched in the mid-1950s by AT&T. Or so Babbage assumed. Research for a piece on the rise of video communication revealed this received wisdom to be spurious. It was actually Germany's Reichspost which first introduced such a service in 1936, on the occasion of the Olympic Games, held that year in Berlin.
Besides the German capital three other cities—Leipzig, Nuremberg, Munich—had special post offices ("Fernsehsprechstellen") to make calls, according to the German Television Museum in Wiesbaden (in German). Video images were created by scanning users with a mechanically-controlled light beam 25 times per second and using a photocell capable of capturing 40,000 pixels.
These specs aren't bad compared with today's webcams, many of which reach about the same frame rate and resolution. Still, just like AT&T's service, the "Fernsehsprechdienst" remained a curiosity. It was reportedly shut down in 1940—upstaged by the war.
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