AT&T, Cisco All Akimbo

Signs of companies' keen interest in delivery of video over the Internet continue unabated. The latest proof is word that AT&T (NYSE: T) and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) are among the names participating in a $15.5 million round of financing for Internet video delivery service Akimbo. If this sort of thing sounds familiar, that's because it is, and such moves seem bound to increase in the coming months.

Case in point: TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) has been making a lot of noise lately with Internet video delivery through its set-top boxes, a move made possible through TiVo's partnership with Brightcove, a company that seems to be getting increasing media coverage. (Brightcove has an added claim to fame: CEO Jeremy Allaire was once chief technology officer for Macromedia.)

There's somewhat of a free-for-all at play, as consumers begin to realize they have more control over what they watch than they ever did in the past, and service providers of all stripes want in on the action. Cable companies such as Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) are providing lots of on-demand content, not to mention Internet connections and telephone service, so, of course, telecom companies have been stepping into their territory as well. Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has an interactive Internet television service called FiOS, and AT&T is planning a rollout of its own Homezone service this summer. Although some might wonder whether consumers are really ready to ditch their cable providers and receive their entertainment content through telecom companies, Verizon recently claimed in a press release that FiOS is taking market share from cable operators because FiOS is better. Those are fighting words.

And that takes us back to AT&T's interest in Akimbo. The financing correlates with a deal through which Akimbo will provide content to Homezone. Through using a set-top box, AT&T subscribers will be able to access content from Akimbo, as well as EchoStar's (Nasdaq: DISH) service. Akimbo has 10,000 titles from 200 content providers, including Major League Baseball, The Food Network, A&E, The History Channel, and the Cartoon Network. AT&T will also offer content from Movielink through its Homezone service.

Delivering video content to televisions over the Internet is obviously in the beginning stages, but it's not hard to see that it will become increasingly prevalent and more and more mainstream. It might have taken a long time for convergence to really hit the living room, but it finally seems imminent now.

It's still anybody's guess who the winners and the losers will be in this budding new trend, what with so many corporate names piling on. I can think of one group of winners, though: consumers, who have more entertainment options than ever before.

For related content, see the following Foolish articles:

• Is Applegoing to the movies?
• TiVo casts for dollars with TiVoCast.
• Sony uses Brightcove for its blog dreams.

TiVo is a longtime Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection. To find out what other stocks David and Tom Gardner have recommended, try out Stock Advisor free for 30 days. AT&T is a former Stock Advisor pick.

Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.