Chris Barton: Face to face with loved ones half a world away

The home computer got a nice addition last month - a webcam, a gift from the eldest and his girlfriend. Somehow I've never got around to buying one, even though I've often thought it would be great to talk face to face with family and friends overseas. Which is exactly what we did using the webcam function of MSN Messenger (MSN Messenger) software.

I don't normally use any form of instant messaging software. The same aversion makes me only rarely send text messages from my mobile. I like to think I'm taking back control of my communication.

So "MSN" doesn't pop up at any moment on my PC and tell me somebody I know is online. There are enough intrusions in my day by phone and email as it is. And unless absolutely necessary, I can't abide talking by typing on a keyboard or phone keypad.

But to do the webcam conference I had to make an exception. Ben fired up MSN. The first connection was both extraordinary and frustrating because there on screen from Holland was our second son (on his OE, also called Ben - it's complicated, don't ask). At first we could see and hear Ben the younger, but he could only see us.

That caused me to tap on the keyboard: "Seeing and hearing you but having to type to talk is a pain." At which point we closed everything down and found the microphone was plugged into the wrong port on the sound card. A few seconds later we were back on line and raving about how incredible this was.

But most of us also found it a bit unnerving. "I'm not sure I like this," said the Bens. I sat there for a bit like a stunned mullet. My partner shouted at the screen until everyone told her she didn't need to do that. Our 13-year-old daughter found it all perfectly normal, but then she's young enough to have grown up with a PC and expects technology to do fabulous things.

Before long we relaxed into the process - bringing the dog and the cat to the camera so they too could say hello. Then we held up silly objects - just because we could. And pointed the webcam out the window so Ben and his equally homesick mate could take in Mt Victoria. After that we just settled down and talked - for an hour. It was amazing.

Amazing because the picture quality was great - thanks to ihug Connect's two megabit per second broadband service. In Holland, where the room lighting resembled a Rembrandt, they were receiving us on a 768 kilobit per second service. The voice quality was great too, albeit with a bit of an echo from the speakers which you can improve through the placement of the microphone.

The first rule of webcam conferencing is that video needs lots of bandwidth in both directions, so if you're on dial up, forget it.

The communication was amazing also because the hour-long conversation didn't cost us anything extra - all taken care of in our monthly internet charge. Quite extraordinary when you think about the cost of an hour-long telephone call to Holland and how much it would cost to go to a special facility to make a videoconference.

But as always in New Zealand's impoverished broadband environment, there's a catch. According to my usage log, our hour-long conference used 134 megabytes of data. It's easy to see how a lot of webcam conferencing would chew through the monthly caps on downloads that most broadband plans here employ. The approach defies logic. On the one hand broadband is offering vistas of new communication tools. On the other the telcos and internet providers are limiting how much of a good thing we can have. Internet on a meter is a sick joke.

So far I haven't used up my monthly download cap, but with with webcam conferencing just a few clicks away, I'm wondering how long it will last.

There's another problem too - paranoia. I can't get over the feeling, even when the computer is off, that my webcam is watching me.


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