Broadband video can be cheap and not dirty

You could almost call it "Grandma Vision."

A Berkeley, Calif., start-up is targeting grandparents with a new video phone service it hopes service providers will want to package with their broadband offerings.

SightSpeed grew out of research done at Cornell University on how to make audioconferencing and videoconferencing more like normal human interaction. Today, the company is offering a limited version of its service for free and unlimited IP-based videophone calls for as little as $50 a year.

SightSpeed’s service was showcased today as part of the Central Virginia Electric Cooperative’s Broadband over Powerline system, but the company is also hoping to attract other broadband providers and hardware makers to package and sell its service.

"Sightspeed is a reason to buy a computer or get a newer computer, a reason to get broadband service, a reason to buy a camera," said SightSpeed CEO Brad Treat. "We try to make it as simple as possible by buying a starter kit from us or bundling in with a broadband carrier."

In fact, SightSpeed is targeting grandparents who may not own a computer or may have one five to six years old, but are willing to make a technology upgrade and buy broadband services to see their grandchildren daily.

"Our target and our customers are the grandmas of the world," Treat said. "That’s who came and found us."

Road warriors are also potential customers. "We do live customer service so we hear from our customers every day, and we hear from people who tell us how much it means to tuck their kids in at night and tell them a story from on the road," Treat said.

SightSpeed supports more than 100 different Webcams, but also will provide a free camera with a $50 one-year subscription. The monthly rate is $5 for unlimited service, and subscribers get their own Web page that allows non-subscribers to see them and talk to them over an IP interface. There is also a limited service that lets users have up to 15 minutes "face time" via videophone a day. After the limit is reached, the audio portion of the call continues.

SightSpeed is not sharing revenues with broadband carriers but sees itself as a value-added service they can use to attract new customers, Treat says. He says his service is better than that offered by Instant Messaging companies such as AOL, Yahoo and MSN, because it is based on the Cornell research that developed an automated method of maintaining the quality of the video despite variations in the broadband signal.