• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 12, 2010

With the release of the FaceTime video calling app in the iPhone 4, the decades-long vision of mainstream video telephony finally seemed to be at hand. After all, if Apple couldn't find a way to make video chat as ubiquitous as texting, who could?

But a new report from U.K.-based Juniper Research throws cold water on that prospect, despite the Apple breakthrough. It projects only 29 million people video chatting by 2015, or less than 10% of smartphone users. Juniper points to a lack of interoperability among devices as the barrier to wider expansion.

"The use of video calling has had several false dawns, and has remained flat in recent years," Anthony Cox, a senior analyst at Juniper, said in a release on its latest smartphone forecast. The technology research firm predicts that video phone chat will get the most uptake from international callers and people working and living away from their families.

At present, people using FaceTime can video chat only with other iPhone 4 users or those with the latest version of the iPod touch. The feature is also limited to Wi-Fi network access for now. Based on various open industry standards, Apple has pledged to release it as an open standard so other companies can develop around it, according to AppleInsider. Apple has also approved third-party video calling apps like Fring for the iPhone, which allow users to video chat with other Fring or Skype users.

Apple isn't the only phone maker offering video calling capability. The HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and Samsung Epic have video chat features as well as T-Mobile's MyTouch smartphone.

Beyond video calling, the Juniper report projected that by 2015, 84% of all handsets will have functions that today are associated with smartphones such as connections to app storefronts and touchscreens. Barriers to entry for consumer electronics players will come down as mobile operating systems rely more on open-source software and components become increasingly standardized.

Like Gartner and IDC, Juniper also expects Google's Android platform to continue gaining ground over the next five years while Symbian's dominance declines. By 2015, the firm anticipates that the global smartphone market will reach $94 billion.