My last stop on the floor at the Consumer Electronics Show this week was a visit with Inbrics, a Korean vendor that is testing the waters in the U.S. market for the first time. I sat down with Inbrics’ managing director Tommy Cha and Larry Anthony, senior VP of one of its U.S. joint marketing partners, voice and video-over IP provider XCast Labs. The companies are working together to try to bring Inbrics’ converged IP communications solution to the market.

Inbrics has combined an Android-based smartphone, dubbed the MID-M1 with a Jetson-esque docking station that also acts as a home hub. The slim, sliding handset is about 2.5 x 5 inches and offers a 3.7-inch touch screen that slides to expose a full QWERTY keyboard. It will run Android and supports 720p video playback. GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and either 3G or WiMAX round out the device’s connectivity options, and it boasts two cameras along with up to 16 GB of memory.

The hub/docking station, which is about the size of a standard office phone, allows users to use the smartphone as the access point to deliver content over a home network to TVs or PCs via HDMI or via WiFi to DLNA-compliant devices.

The hub also has a touch screen interface that allows it to be used as the controller for all devices connected to it. And, since the unit automatically recognizes and synchronizes with compatible devices, users can access their cellphone contacts, stored media and other data that reside on various devices around the home.

Inbrics will offer the products through white label partnerships with wireless carriers, cable operators and residential phone companies, focusing on the Tier 2 and 3 players. It is working with partners like Xcast, which describes itself as an advanced SaaS (Software as a Service) provider that provides outsourced integrated IP-based voice and video services to many of the same companies Inbrics hopes to penetrate.

Xcast will add the M1 to a suite of offerings based on its proprietary Digital Voice and Video (DV&V) platform, a fully hosted, IP-based solution that delivers Class 5 switching with MIR (Most Intelligent Routing), Video Telephony, IP-PBX, SIP Trunking and other advanced IP applications, including video conferencing.

In addition, Xcast hopes that Inbrics’ help will give it a leg up as it expands into new markets around the world, starting in Asia.

Filed under: 3G, Broadband, Cable, Cable Operators, Hardware, Telephone Companies, Vendors, Video, VoIP, Voice, WiMAX, Wireless, devices, streaming media by Tim McElgunn | Social tagging: Android > Broadband > CES > online video > smartphones > WiMAX