Photos: BT talks big on virtual worlds

This phone box allows avatars to make a call out to the real world on their phone.

"Maybe in two or three years time these environments might be even more immersive, you might have gloves or a headset and it might be easier to make a call from in here than on your actual mobile," Brotherton predicted.

Most of the services are currently just demonstrations of the possibilities of the technology, although BT is planning to launch the phone box as a beta trial to collect usage statistics. "The idea is we'd launch these phone boxes in popular areas of Second Life and then we can start to understand the consumer need," he said.

"The consumer need we recognise is that people play Second Life but they have many friends and contacts that don't play Second Life and it's about providing that real world/virtual world interconnectivity."

Image credit: BT