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Future vision of a new 3D telephony: Mobile operators are now getting down to the concrete implementation
Photo: Vodafone
With »Facetime«, Apple has successfully updated telephony, and European providers are now working on the next step.
Europe's major mobile network operators are joining forces so that mobile phone users can see the person they are talking to as a hologram when making a call.
Vodafone, Telefónica (O2), Deutsche Telekom and the French company Orange announced a project on Wednesday in which a joint platform for the transmission of three-dimensional images is to be developed.
Although hologram telephony is already technically possible, it is complex and expensive - which is why it is only rarely used, according to the statement.
The providers want to change that and make this type of communication suitable for the mass market.
The hologram platform could be available to end customers in about two years.
Virtual reality glasses are required to see the 3D image.
The companies involved did not give any key financial data for the project.
Transferred unilaterally only
With hologram telephony - also known as "holography" - the person called looks through VR glasses and sees the upper body of the caller as a digital image.
This is possible because the selfie camera records their body data and then a three-dimensional digital version is designed.
For example, if you are sitting at home in your home office, a colleague could call and then appear on the other side of the desk as a 3D image.
In such a call, there is only one hologram, and that is that of the caller.
There is no hologram of the called party wearing the VR glasses.
The new platform should ensure that such calls can also be transmitted between different mobile networks.
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The telecommunications industry has been tinkering with hologram connections for a long time.
In 2018, Vodafone demonstrated a hologram video call in a moving minibus at a test site in Aldenhoven (NRW).
The project at that time was based on a different technology than the current project and was visually not very convincing.
With the closing of ranks that has now taken place in the industry, a big step forward is to be taken.
The mobile phone companies praise the advantages in the warmest tones.
How good or bad the visual quality will actually be in everyday use cannot be said at this point in time.
tmk/dpa
