At last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2007) in Las Vegas Cingular showed attendees what may become the first service in the United States that allows wireless phone users to make live video calls.

According to Cingular, customers can start with a normal mobile phone call and then activate a real-time video stream that lets the called party see live video while they’re talking. Cingular’s statement said “the service also allows customers to switch the direction of the video stream during the same phone call.” Alcatel/Lucent and LG supplied the equipment for the wireless video demo.

Although Cingular is the first wireless carrier in the United States expected to deliver a video sharing service, TMN in Portugal, TIM in Italy, and CSL in Hong Kong already debuted a similar service in late 2005.

What makes this service of interest from a convergence aspect is that the service providers are incorporating the use of IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture to provide session control over a 3G wireless network. What makes Cingular’s IMS deployment of particular interest is that its IMS foundation for multimedia services is also paving the way for IMS-controlled video on the wireline AT&T network, given that Cingular is now wholly owned by AT&T. While some limited voice services over IMS like push-to-talk have been offered commercially for some time, we believe the stage is quickly being set for a broader offering of commercial multimedia services that include video on the AT&T network to support the company’s “three-screen” strategy.

Cingular said it expects to make the video service commercially available in 2007. Prices for the service were not disclosed.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.