In the mid 1990s, video-conferencing was one of the technologies that was going to revolutionise business. Advanced units bristling with TV cameras and screens could plug into ISDN lines and, thanks to the wonders of video compression, people could have meetings across the globe.

Except it didn’t quite happen like that, at least not in South Africa. The cost of bandwidth, especially ISDN, and the high price of the units meant that as a business tool its adoption was less than widespread, to say the least. The technology was also a bit clunky: training courses bundled with video-conferencing centres emphasised the need for the participants to move their heads as little as possible and connections were normally proprietary – the internet wouldn’t have coped with high-speed video. Delays in the audio were common as were sync problems between it and the picture.