NTCA: Startups target rural indoor market

ORLANDO--Two start-ups, Home Phone Tunes and iControl Networks, were among the newcomers to the show floor at the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association’s annual meeting this year. Both have innovative network-based services for inside the home.

Privately funded Home Phone Tunes was incorporated in 2005 to bring its new Ringboxx to market. Ringboxx is a device that does for landline service what ringtones do for wireless service: make it hip. It enables residential phone subscribers to download customizable ringtones for their home.

No more polyphonic sound, no more being a slave to the telephone manufacturer, HPT’s device allows users to download or create a custom ringtone that reacts to Caller ID and plays the tone programmed for a particular caller or type of caller such as a telemarketer. The product will be sold through service providers as an add-on service. It is currently under beta testing and should complete those tests between April and June.

“Sixty-five percent of the people we surveyed say they want to buy from their local telco,” said Kirk Cameron, president and CEO of Home Phone Tunes. The company also will distribute through retailers and share ringtone revenue with them.

Cameron founded an application service provider company called EEI Solutions in 1990, which he ultimately sold to Prosodie Interactive ten years later. He also was a national sales account manager for U S West. He said he is initially targeting rural telcos as partners “because they make decisions quicker and are always looking for those enhanced services.”

Another enhancement for the home is iControl’s home monitoring solution, which is not to be confused with a home security system.

“It’s not a fear-based sell,” said Reza Raji, president and CEO of iControl Networks. Unlike security systems that go off twice a year, and usually for false alarms, he said, the event-based system can be used just as well for monitoring when things don’t happen, such as your grandma not opening her medicine chest in the morning or the front door not opening at 3:00 when your child gets home from school.

“People like to be notified by this system, because it’s about things you want to know,” Raji said. “And service providers want to sell it because it enhances their broadband story.”

This venture-backed software and services company hosts the Web-based service for service providers and provides all the equipment, from motion sensors to light switches and from video cameras to thermostats.

The company recently added Z-wave technology, which enables several different wireless devices to work together. iControl also has trials underway. Theirs is with Tier 1 operators in the U.S.

Users of this system can remotely monitor current and stored events, such as photos taken whenever a certain door opens using a PC, a PDA or a mobile phone. They can program based on certain times of day to have lights in a room go on when motion is detected.

Raji founded iControl in 2003 after serving as director of business development at Echelon Corporation, a control and automation company. Prior to that he worked as a development engineer for IBM. He has been a board member of the Consumer Electronics Association’s Home Networking and IT Division and a founding member of the Universal Plug and Play Steering Committee.