Enjoying video calls? A Filipino made it possible
Medyo overblown yung title. The patent is basically utilizing two existing technologies (TV and telephone). The novel part may be the method to combine the TV and telephone signals, transmit the combined signals to a data line, and separate the signals to feed them to the other party's TV/telephone. It's also misleading how the article implied that AT&T followed suit after Zara made the patent; as if AT&T didn't have their own development team.
Lastly, a quick look at Wikipedia gave me a lead on how the 1930's Germany post office had a working video-telephone system. But it's basically a CCTV and a telephone placed on the same room. If I'm understanding it right, the former uses a dedicated coax cable that can only be run between the two remote locations, while the telephone system is basically what's available at the time.