Owners of the Sony Ericsson P990 smartphone can now enjoy their favourite local TV shows on their phones wherever they are in the world. LocationFree from Sony redirects TV shows from your home television to target devices such as your P990, so you can keep up with your favourite programmes whether you’re on the beach, in an airport or just in your local park. You can watch live TV, playback recorded programmes and even set up future recordings, all on your P990.

LocationFree uses the internet to redirect content from your home to your P990 wherever you are. At its heart is the LocationFree Base Station available from Sony, together with LocationFree Player software supplied on your P990's Memory Stick or by download.

The Base Station plugs into your existing home network or establishes a wireless link to a broadband internet-connected device such as a Sony PlayStation Portable system, notebook or desktop PC. When you’re away or out of the house, you simply connect to the Base Station with your P990 to watch TV, enjoy one of your own DVDs (provided it’s in the player), or control your set top box or DVD/HDD recorder to make your own recordings. You can choose the best way for your P990 to connect to the Base Station depending on where you are, and this can be over the Internet, through a wireless connection if you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot or through your 3G network. The Base Station itself also doubles as a wireless access point, providing the basis of a home wireless network.

“Keeping up with your favourite TV shows is just the start,” Steve Walker continues, “There are many more uses for LocationFree on your P990 as it will transmit content from any number of devices that are linked up to the Base Station. For example with a video camera or video recorder connected you can use your P990 to see friends and family while you’re away, or even keep a check on home security.”

The P990 is the latest, high performance smartphone from Sony Ericsson. It offers all the benefits of UMTS/3G connectivity, including video calling, push email, high-bandwidth multi-media downloads and the ability to browse the Internet with full HTML pages. Designed to minimise the number of devices that people carry around with them, it brings true mobility to the business environment, or to anyone that wants a truly connected lifestyle, wherever they happen to be.

LocationFree Player is available on the Memory Stick with the P990 or can be downloaded at www.sonyericsson.com/support/ .