Submitted by: kirkland on Thursday February 05th, 2004 at 03:05 PM EST

America Online on Thursday said it will let users of its instant messenger service communicate over a live video connection for the first time, months after federal regulators lifted limitations on the company.

AOL, the world's largest online service and owned by Time Warner Inc., also said it will link its live video chat service to Apple Computer Inc.'s iChat service.

The deal expands a May 2002 relationship between the two companies that linked their respective messaging services.

More than 35 million active users per month send on average 1.5 billion messages a day over AOL's messenger service, the company said.

The Federal Communications Commission last August lifted restrictions on AOL that prevented it from offering advanced messaging services such as live video.

The restrictions were placed as a condition in its approval of the 2001 merger of AOL and Time Warner.

Since then, AOL has been testing a video chat service, which it officially launches today in a new version of its software AOL Instant Messenger 5.5.

Likewise, Apple is releasing a new version of its software, iChat AV 2.1, that will link the two companies' products. Apple has built video-chatting functions into its latest operating system since last October.

Both services are free for users.

Source: Forbes.com