At CES 2009, Microsoft Mediaroom PR reps, while doing their little spin dance, did manage to let slip that "multiple carrier field trials" were, in fact, in progress. When questioned specifically about the U.S. market, PR did their thing and asked the questioner to go bug someone else. In this case, AT&T, presumably because the carrier was considering the platform or it is in the running to support it in the U.S. with U-verse.

As for the U.K., IPTV on an Xbox 360 looks a little more certain in 2009 than for other markets. BT was confirmed as the carrier for the service in that region, with deployment possibly this year, possibly not—no details were given on timing. If trials are indeed ongoing at this very moment, however, it could bode well for a 2009 rollout (E3 fodder? Perhaps!). Just find some British friends fast if you happen to live Stateside or elsewhere.

As noted by the source, that pic from he CES show floor is Mediaroom running on a Motorola set-top box. The service will look very similar when running on an Xbox 360. [Zatz Not Funny]

First, let's go over the features that Mediaroom offers now. With a simple set-top-box, you can grab high quality HDTV that's better quality (seeing as Comcast has been compressing their HDTV shows like mad) than what you'd otherwise get on cable. If you've got two set-top-boxes, you can stream shows off of each other so you don't have to record a program twice to be able to watch it in your living room and bedroom. This feature is called DVR Anywhere, and will be available whenever operators roll it out.

You can even watch the same TV broadcast or recorded shows on your Windows PC or Xbox 360, a feature that's been announced since CES by Microsoft, but is up to the actual service provider (AT&T, BT) to roll out. In AT&T's case, it won't be available until the second-half of 2008. Update: Microsoft tells me that the details here were a bit off. The Xbox 360 support was announced at CES and will be rolled out on BT's Vision service in the future. AT&T hasn't announced Xbox 360 support. Viewing shows on a PC is something I saw demonstrated in Microsoft's labs, but I'm clarifying with Microsoft as to what it was.

This leads us to the new feature Microsoft showed off: Applications. Since IPTV is a two-way street, your Mediaroom set-top-boxes are able to pull down information from the net, leading to very interesting interactive programs that people can code up for shows. For example:

• During a boxing match, you can pull up different mics, view fighter stats, and even view/vote in polls.

• Nascar races will let you bring up the cockpit cams of your favorite driver (as long as the driver is being tracked by TNT), or listen to the pit crew shout directions.

• During a primary event, CNN allows you to bring up voting results, bios, and other information about each candidate.

And so on. These apps are coded by the shows' producers, then sold to the provider in order to enhance your viewing experience. You could even code up your own app, tack it onto Lost, and try and sell it.

No service provider currently has applications in place now, but they're lightweight and should be able to be run on set top boxes out there today. It's just a matter of your local provider getting these features from Microsoft and integrating it into their service plans. [MeidaRoom]

Since it's Bluetooth-based, you can sync the phone with your PC, transfer contacts and all that jazz.

The Glide comes with an assortment of goodies, like its color screen, copious amount of ringtones and an answering machine. Yes, truly awesome. It's available now for about $330. Act now, though, since the price shoots up about $40 once July 31 hits and then you just might be overpaying for a landline phone, Bluetooth or not. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [BT Shop via Gadget Candy]

Voice over IP telephony provider Skype has developed a large and fanatical following, attracted by its ease of use and call quality. The free calls don't hurt, either — leading to plenty of questions along the lines of: "When will I be able to use Skype on my cell phone?" Which really translates to: "I want free calls on my cell phone." Add in the emergence of mobile handsets with Wi-Fi connections, and there is a growing clamor for Skype-like cheap rates on mobile phones.

There are already some solutions for the impatient, including Skype Wi-Fi phones, and kludgy hardware workarounds that require you to either stay within Bluetooth range of your PC or get a second phone with free incoming calls. For anything but expensive international calls, the savings seem hardly worth the effort.

Skype does (or at least did before its purchase by eBay) have its eye on mobile. It's already got a Pocket PC client, it's got a deal to be pre-installed on i-Mate PDAs, and its CEO has made vague statements about coming out with further smartphone versions of its software.

In the short term, though, most people aren't going to see Skype on a cell phone, let alone use it. There are technical issues: processors in phones aren't powerful enough for VoIP, and even 3G networks have too much latency and not enough bandwidth in most cases. But more pressing are the financial issues: a cell phone company will never sell you a phone — which they've subsidized — that allows users an easy way to make free calls. And, of course, the fact remains that for most people, charges for cellular data remain so high that using it to make "free" Skype calls is pretty pointless.

But even if you never intend to use Skype on your mobile phone, that doesn't mean you won't reap some of the benefits. The downward pressure Skype and other VoIP networks is exerting on call costs is forcing cell phone companies to figure out how they can utilize the technology themselves to reduce prices, but still get people to pay a premium to use the wide coverage of the mobile network — a clear advantage over trying to use a patchwork of WiFi hotspots for coverage.

There's a few different ways this will happen. The first is Skype-like free calling to users on the same network, like with Verizon's IN plan, or the free mobile-to-mobile calls on other US carriers. The second is another different way of billing, pioneered by O2's Genion service in Germany. This lets users pick a "home zone" — an area usually defined as that served by a certain cell base station and maybe a few adjacent ones — where they get free or cut-rate calls. Some of O2's German rivals have started their own versions, hoping to offer users an alternative to high landline prices, but offering a cheap, integrated service that's cheap enough so people won't turn to SkypeOut or something similar when they're at home.

In the UK, fixed provider BT has taken the idea of fixed-mobile convergence a step further with its Fusion service. It sells users a DSL connection along with a router and a mobile phone with some special software on it. The phone works as a normal GSM handset outside the home, but when within range, it connects to the router via Bluetooth and sends calls over the DSL line instead of the mobile network, at a lower cost.

BT, being a landline phone company, didn't implement everything perfectly the first time around, but plans to launch with 20 new handsets next year that use WiFi instead of Bluetooth, and it's inevitable that more carriers will offer converged services in 2006. Nokia's recently announced E-series phones feature VoWiFi technology for connecting to corporate wireless PBX systems; consumer devices that connect to home WiFi access points and make calls using the Unlicensed Mobile Access standard aren't far behind.

Will you ever have a Skype mobile phone? That's very doubtful. But there's a good chance there will be a number of devices and services on sale by the end of next year that will go some way towards merging the convenience and coverage of a cell phone with the cheap calls of Skype. The mobile equivalent of free Skype-to-Skype calls is already here, if the person you're calling uses the same cell company as you do. All of the services you'd have to pay for to make Skype a real phone replacement — SkypeIn, voicemail, and so on — are already included in pretty much every phone plan. If mobile carriers can offer cheap calls from home — even just cheap international calls, given the steadily declining price of national calls here in the US — they'll have usurped much of Skype and VoIP's cost advantage.

The idea here is convergence: converging the benefits of fixed and mobile services. While Skype and VoIP may be the disruptive force, the convergence is far more likely to happen on the mobile phone than it is on the Skype service.

Carlo Longino is a writer and analyst that follows the mobile industry. He's co-editor of MobHappy, and also an analyst for Techdirt. He can be reached at carlo@mobhappy.com.

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