Chances are you are reading this on your iPhone. But did you know there was another AT&T video phone long before the iPhone came out? The desire for video calling took root well before the 20th century, and in fact the technology existed as far back at the 1930s – it was just thought not commercially feasible until AT&T’s Bell Labs demonstrated a prototype at the New York World’s Fair. Even then it took several more decades for prices to come down enough to appeal to the average consumer.

On this day, January 7th, in 1992, AT&T began sales of its breakthrough model, the VideoPhone 2500. Consisting of a modem attached to a phone transmitting between 16 and 19 bps, and using digital compression to bring down data levels to where they could be transmitted over regular phone lines, it retailed for $1500.

Despite being the first color video phone on the market, and AT&T’s breathtaking predictions of millions of units sold, the VideoPhone 2500 never quite took off. The price was still rather high, even after AT&T dropped it to $1,000, and due to bandwith limitations the picture was very low-quality and jumpy. AT&T discontinued sales of the model three years after its debut.