They have indeed been around forever, and I did even once make a video call on my N70. The problem with video calls based on that standard included:

- It was a circuit switched data call vs packet network. That's great on some fronts (eg low latency) but hideous on others (trying to call someone on another operator was tricky as it didn't often work, and pretty much forget about it calling abroad). Plus, the operator could charge you through the nose as the call type was totally different.

- There was a hard bitrate limit enforced by using UMTS (384kbit) as that was the maximum uplink available at the time. That, and using H263 meant the quality sucked, frankly. I think it was only QCIF (176x144?) and maybe 5-10 frames per second.

I'm not saying that I'd use FaceTime myself (it doesn't feel natural to look at a phone when having a conversation if you ask me) but the 3G standard video conferencing looks so poor compared to iChat/Skype that it's very hard to take it seriously at all. Things have moved on, people expect a lot more these days.