Technological advancement is important for forwardness and improvement of standards, which the human race is always trying to achieve. Where in the past, there were once brooms, today vacuum cleaners are the norm, and where once before, there was mainly sea transport through ship, the Wright Brothers made sure we have the aeroplane for easy and quicker transport. Today, popular application known as Skype dominates the videophone/video-conferencing industry, but did you know that such technology stretches back almost 80 years ago in Germany, well if you didn’t know, read on and be enlightened.

Produced in 1936, the chief innovator behind such technology was Dr. George Oskar Schubert, who headed the development department at Fernsch. AG. In such department the world’s first public video telephone service, popularly known in Germany as Gegensehn-Fernsprechanlagen was created.

Prior to this innovation, video telephone systems had a two way audio system and a one way video system, but the  Gegensehn-Fernsprechanlagen came with an innovative two way video system, in addition to the already existing two way audio system. Due to the complexity of the video telephone in the 1930’s, the essentials that came with it such as lights, camera, display and telephone handsets were set up in post offices, as such places were able to handle video telephone infrastructure. The first video telephone between post offices came to fold in March 1936 and was connected between the city of Berlin and Leipzig, with expansion to post offices at Munich and Nuremberg.
[source: vsee.com]