AT&T’s announcement this week that it has joined the Green Grid to help promote more efficient use of power by data centers is one of many steps the largest U.S. telecom services provider is taking to both lower its own energy consumption and help its customers do the same.

Reducing energy consumption actually presents many service opportunities, to include AT&T’s new managed TelePresence service, managed data center services for business customers and home automation services, as well.

AT&T is testing four vendor prototypes of a multi-media access gateway product in its laboratories. The MAG, which becomes a services hub in the home, will be able to support services such as remote energy management and telemedicine, Chris Rice, executive vice president of shared services at AT&T, said in an interview this week. The MAG should be in technology trials later this year or in early 2009, Rice said.

“The MAG will allow you to store content on that device, whether it’s from your PC, video, DVR or wireless device, and it might be the femtocell inside the home,” Rice said. “The whole purpose is to be an applications layer device. So it could be used for home monitoring or health monitoring applications. That whole gateway becomes the environment for new services as well as what we want to offer today.”

A recent Insight Research study said U.S. telecom service providers need to move quickly to capitalize on a multi-billion opportunity to provide energy management services to American households ahead of the energy companies themselves.

“I think our broadband pipe into the home is the perfect means of offering the service because it’s an IP service,” Rice said. “I think there is a competitive element, I don’t know around the urgency. The first [provider] in the home has a competitive advantage, we know that.”