The cable industry announced it is standardizing technology, called “Tru2way”,  for two-way interactive services, which essentially means consumers won’t need cable boxes to watch TV.

It also means interoperability between cable providers which can in turn lead to a growth in interactive services. Moving away from closed, proprietary systems into an open technology has been years in the making.  CableLabs, which works as the cable industry’s research division, said it would now be branded as Tru2way.

Comcast said it will roll out Tru2way by the end of 2008, while Time Warner and Cox said they would also have it available this year.

Already new products are being announced at CES.  There’s Comcast’s and Panasonic’s portable DVR player called AnyPlay, and Panasonic’s Viera Plasma HDTV.

In other cable news, Pike and Fischer, a research company, said that cable companies would concentrate on saving money for customers in 2008, rather than adding new features. The reason is because consumers will be worried about their budgets this year because of the economic downturn due to the mortgage crisis.

In fact, I just read that AT&T is cutting residential telephone and broadband customers for not paying their bills. Although cable companies will still lose TV customers this year, they will make up for it via digital voice/VOIP, as more consumers drop residential phones.

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