With a service launched yesterday by Rogers Wireless Inc., cellphone users will for the first time in North America be able to use video calling on their handsets, allowing them to see and hear the person they're talking to in real-time via webcam.

The webcam is set up so that users have to face the screen and talk over a speakerphone, which could give quiet businesses like bookstores and restaurants that despise voice-only cellphones another reason to grumble.

The phones also offer high-speed Internet and multimedia services, including mobile television and downloadable radio and video-on-demand clips from sources such as YouTube.com, XM Satellite and Rogers MusicStore.

But it wasn't drawing much excitement from one industry expert, who questioned its practicality and wondered why those doing video calling with affordable webcams on PCs would make the switch.

"We found that about 11 per cent of Canadian online users were doing video calling from (PCs)," said Tony Olvet of technology consultancy IDC Canada Ltd. "So that's in kind of an ideal environment where you have a decent (web)cam and you have that kind of fairly stable connection. So when you convert that to the mobile or wireless space, you're naturally going to see a dropoff."

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