Last Monday, Rogers hired William Shatner of Star Trek days of ole to tout the benefits of its new video cell phones. The selection of Captain Kirk as a spokesperson is a fitting choice for a company who appears to be telling consumers, ‘the future is now’. The phones, part of the company’s new aptly named ‘Vision’ line, will enable wireless users to video conference and literally see their conversational counterpart in real time on the device’s screen.

Rogers is delivering these services via its new High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network. With the introduction of this new product line, Rogers is positioning itself on the cutting edge of wireless technologies, claiming ground as the first North American provider to offer video chatting capability on mobile phones.

These calls, during which the phone basically doubles as an audio-enabled webcam , are being offered at the rate of 25 cents per minute, or 5 dollars per month for 50 minutes of calling. Currently the service is only available in and around Southern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe Region, but Rogers has plans to expand to top markets across the country throughout 2007. In order for the video-calling feature to work both parties must be using a Rogers Vision phone.

Other intriguing features of the Vision suite of services are that it will allow subscribers to download any of the top 50 YouTube videos of the week, access XM Satelite Radio, watch up to 25 local television stations including the Weather Network, BlueJays.TV, MuchMusic, and CBC Newsworld, and participate in redpipe.ca, which according to Rogers is “the music-lovers mobile music destination for free artist generated content like music, videos, artist news, alerts, blogs, pictures and event listings.”

This offering in part seems to in part be a response to Telus’ recent partnership with Amp’d Mobile, allowing the company to deliver gaming, music, and video downloads to members of their cell phone network.

When it comes to real time face-to-face mobile communications, however, Rogers seems to be demonstrating to customers and competitors alike that they’ve got the monkey now.