Sezmi Corp has announced its plans to introduce a way cheaper alternative to typical cable and satellite services. According to Buno Pati, Sezmi co-founder and CEO, the customers who will go for the new technology will have their bills reduced to half of what they are currently paying.

The system can be quite easily installed, as all it takes is replacing the old satellite box with a Sezmi set-top, to which a media receiver is then connected. The two must be linked to the television set and that’s pretty much everything. A beta testing period will soon begin and if things go according to plan, the company is to launch the service in three markets by December 2008.

"We live here, so we want to use the service ourselves," Phil Wiser, Sezmi's other co-founder and chairman, said.

The system will deliver regular network television and cable programing, as well as Internet-based videos; Sezmi will enable customers to control and personalize all these features with the help of a remote control, so that different family members can save their very own settings.

There is some serious competition though: AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., the biggest US telecom providers, also have TV services. The two will share eight channels (CBS Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile, MTV, NBC 2Go, NBC News 2Go and Nickelodeon) but will also offer exclusive channels, such as AT&T’s PIX and CNN Mobile Live.

No partners for Sezmi have been announced yet, but during the lauch, in order to obtain a better presentation of the offer, a Powerpoint slide that gathered most of the channels available today (including ESPN and CNN) was shown by company officials.