"Have you ever seen a doctor from hundreds of miles away? You will."

The commercial shows a football player, obviously deep in pain after a leg injury. His concerned coach is talking with a doctor on a large video screen, who assures them the big bruiser will still play again.

Recorded over ten years ago, the commercial was produced by a major, still-popular telecommunications company. At the time, they thought they'd be the ones to transform our world. The explosion of the Internet gave the telecom industry so much cash from high-speed data services, AOL and other ISPs had trouble just keeping up with their own Incredible Growth, most experts were predicting a Huge Boom in technology and communications, and consumers were ecstatic about this Wonderful, New World.

Slow down there, Chucky. Look around and you'll see some improvements, but nothing like the overly optimistic marketing of the late 20th Century.

Let's break things down into manageable pieces, like the aforementioned "video telephones".

Yahoo Instant Messenger, Microsoft Messenger and similar instant messaging tools have free video calling built in. Say you have a new baby you want to show off to Minnesota relatives, or you have a friend who just moved to Colorado. How to stay in touch from Michigan?

Let's look at the Yahoo Instant Messenger (YIM), as it gave me the best video quality during tests.

You'll need a YIM account, an Internet-connected computer with an available USB port, and a USB-connected webcam. Find a buddy with the same equipment, and you can send and receive video together.

A webcam is our camera-and-optional-microphone combo allowing us to send video and audio to buddies using YIM. $30 will get you the "QuickCam Chat", one of the many webcams available.

Download and install Yahoo Instant Messenger at http://messenger.yahoo.com. This is a free tool from Yahoo.

Install your webcam. Run YIM. Find your buddy on YIM, left-click their username, and choose "Invite to View My Webcam" from the Actions menu.

A window will open, showing what your own webcam "sees". Adjust your webcam so your face is in view. If your buddy has a webcam, you'll see a second window showing you the view from your buddy's webcam.

If your webcam has a built-in microphone, also choose "Invite to Conference" from the same Actions menu. Make sure the "Enable Voice Chat" box is checked, click "Invite", and you're done. After accepting the invitations, you'll both be able to see and talk to each other.

Depending on your webcam and Internet connection speed, the video connection will range from "kinda choppy" to "boy, it's really choppy". Nowhere near the quality you see in any movie - Internet bandwidth isn't yet fast enough. Dialup is bad; you need broadband cable or DSL to get acceptable results.

At best, the telecom industry was half right. Yes, the world has changed, only they weren't the ones who gave us video phone technology or, in this case, webcams. It's easy to make promises about the future, particularly when you don't give a date.