Apparently, Worldgate Communications and Snap!VRS has worked out what ever problems between them that led to the Ojo Videophone service being turned off for nearly a month. The message on the Ojo Phone Website promises that customers will have free service until June 1, 2008 to make up for the interruption.

According to the Service Restoration F.A.Q. new purchasers of the Ojo Phone will also enjoy free service until June 1st.

Snap VRS has updated its Website with a video of Snap!VRS general counsel Jeff Rosen announcing the return of the Ojo Service in open captioned ASL.

You may need to reboot your Ojo by unplugging it for 15 seconds then plugging it back in.

As of yet, there has been no explanation from either company on steps that are being taken to assure that the service will be reliable in the future. Much of that will depend on the financial viability of Worldgate which is a publicly traded company and presumably will have to report to its shareholders.

Director Michael Bay demonstrates how “awesome” Verizon FiOS Internet upload speeds are in this commercial.

Upload speeds are important for good videoconferencing because the quality of your two-way conversation is limited by the weakest link which is usually one party’s Internet upstream bandwidth.

I have the FiOS 15/2 Mbps plan which is 15 Mbps download speed and 2 Mbps upload which I find is plenty fast enough for Skype Video, iChat, SightSpeed and ooVoo.

I could upgrade my FiOS service to 15/15 and get the full 15 Mbps upstream but until I’m ready for a high-definition telepresence suite, I don’t think I could take advantage of that bandwidth for videoconferencing.

Propel PBM (Personal Bandwidth Manager) is a software that promises to monitor your use of Internet traffic and give network priority to VOIP and video conferencing above other bandwidth intensive applications.

One of the reasons for poor quality VOIP or video calls is that your computer may be in the midst or sending or receiving a large file and eating up all the Internet bandwidth when all of a sudden a call comes in.

There are any number of applications including automatic Windows or Adobe Acrobat updates that can eat up the bandwidth that you would rather have being used for your VOIP or videoconference application.

Propel has just introduced a PC application that runs as a background service that monitors your computer’s use of bandwidth and manages it automatically.

The network activity is tracked by the PBM Traffic Monitor will protect your Skype traffic while letting other applications through, but at a lower priority and bandwidth usage.

This is a new approach to QOS (Quality of Service) which is usually controlled at a network point outside of the PC. Propel PBM is targeted to non-technical users and requires no configuration or set-up.

The Propel PBM software is currently being offered at a special introductory price of $19.95.

On2 Technologies Inc. will be releasing the Hantro 8190 video decoder chip for use in mobile phones and devices. The On2 announcement says the Hantro 8190 will support the Adobe Flash video format, H.263, H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark and VP6 codecs.

They specifically mention video-conferencing as one of the supported applications, however it is unclear whether the chip will also be able to encode the outgoing video.

The Hantro 8190 is supposed to be powerful enough to decode full 1080p HD resolution video at 30 fps using a 165MHz low-power CPU.

On2 VP6 codecs play a big part in videoconferencing via their use in Skype Video and Adobe Acrobat Connect. Perhaps this new chip will help On2 enjoy the same ubiquity in emerging mobile videoconferencing platforms.

Worldgate Communications, Inc., the company behind the Ojo videophone has filed a Form 8-K announcing that it has shut down its operations as of January 30, 2008.

The Company is currently in a dispute with its largest customer over the payment of significant monies which the Company believes are owed to it. The customer’s refusal to pay such monies has contributed to a shortfall in the operating cash available to the Company to continue operations. Accordingly, on January 30, 2008, the Company shut down its operations as a first step to winding down its business, which will occur if the Company is not able to secure payment of the monies believed to be owed and/or new financing. The Company continues to explore potential financing opportunities and is also pursuing legal recourse against the customer. The Company would intend to resume operations if it can obtain financing or payment of the monies believed to be owed in a timely manner. Without such financing or the payment of monies believed to be owed, however, the Company will continue its plan to wind down the business.

This leaves customers who bought the videophones out in the cold because the Ojo depends on a service provided by the company to route the video calls between Ojo phones. The company had depended upon the monthly subscription model where customers would pay around $15 per month for the videophone network routing service.

Recently, the company had attempted to expand into the Video Relay Service or VRS market in partnership with Snap!VRS. Under the partnership, it is reported that Snap!VRS bought 3000 Ojo videophones to send to deaf and hard of hearing users to communicate with regular telephone users via ASL interpreters.

Snap!VRS CEO Richard Schatzberg sent out a notice claiming that they are the company in question that WorldGate blames for the lack of payment which led to the shutdown.

In his response, Schatzberg says, “While WorldGate would like to direct the blame for its present financial troubles on us, the blame does not reside with Snap!VRS and it is misleading for WorldGate to suggest so. In actuality, we are current on all payments and do not owe WorldGate any money.”

WorldGate was founded in 1995 by current CEO Hal Krisbergh. The company has never turned a profit and reported a loss of $2.7 million for the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2007.

The DeafDC Blog has reactions on the Snap!VRS and Ojo Troubles.

Using a webcam can help you maintain a long-distance relationship according to an article published on CNN.com.

The deployment of soldiers to Iraq or Afghanistan and civilian business travel are separating spouses and lovers. The prolonged absences and not being able to see each other every day can place a strain on relationships.

Phone calls, email and instant messaging are some of the ways couples stay in touch. Some have picked up a pair of webcams and started using video calls in order to bring them closer and experience more face-to-face contact.

Army Spc. Gerrod Cooksey is in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division. His wife, Kelly, waits for him in Ft. Hood, Texas with their two children. She is able to communicate with her husband via videoconferencing and says, “Webcams make a huge difference in our morale. He gets to see the baby getting bigger, and we get to see him to make sure that he is okay.”

Good communication is said to be the number one most important aspect to overcoming the challenge of a long-distance relationship and a personal video conferencing hookup can be the best way to stay emotionally close while you are physically apart.

Welcome to the first post of the Personal Videoconferencing blog.

Thanks for stopping by!