Francis Bourne lives in Maryland with his wife, Jenny. They have four daughters spread around the country. The eldest daughter, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, lives in Northern California with her husband Leslie Firl and their two small sons.

The Bourne family has a mixture of deaf and hearing people who all use American Sign Language to communicate with each other. Recently, 8x8 provided both Francis and his daughter Bridgetta with VideoTTY Videophones for cross-country videoconference testing.

FRANCIS BOURNE types on the VideoTTY
wireless keyboard while sitting on his couch.

FRANCIS & JENNY BOURNE using the VideoTTY
with text-chat above their images.

In an interview using the VideoTTY Videophone, Jenny and Francis talked about the experience of being able to see their daughter's family. "We last saw the baby in March and when Bridgetta held him close to the camera, we had tears in our eyes," said Jenny. They said it feels like their daughter's family is in a nearby neighborhood, instead of actually being 3,000 miles away.

What does the younger generation think of the VideoTTY Videophone? Bridgetta put it simply, "ViaTV is neat."

Francis was so impressed with the VideoTTY product that he purchased one and installed it at his 83 year old mother's home in Lincoln, Nebraska so he could "see" her and his sister more often. "We were stunned to see each other...They understood the blurr when there is too much motion. We stopped and were quiet for awhile. We saw each other clearly. It was so nice."

E-mail us with your order or your questions to: