And he also unwittingly played an important role in the lives of two kids named Jobs and Wozniak … and therefore in the founding of one of the most powerful technology companies the world has ever seen, Apple.

“My dad worked for AT&T for 14 years,” Walter T. Shaw told me yesterday. He made a documentary film about his father’s life and inventions. “He made the blue box so you could make long-distance calls toll-free.”

The “blue box” was a revolution for multistate crime families and illegal betting operations. Not only did it connect to Ma Bell and deliver the sweet milk of free long distance calls, it also — and more importantly — blocked call tracking and monitoring, which is an important feature for those types who liked to chat about which horse was going to get overfed in the Kentucky Derby, or who need to get whacked, pronto.

But L. was also a genius of legal invention.

When he died, he held 39 patents, including many on core technologies that we use every day. The speakerphone, voice recognition systems, the “red phone” alert system used by presidents for decades, the touch-tone phone, call forwarding, conference calling, and the first burglar alarm that automatically calls the cops: These all stem from patents that Shaw senior held. And, bear in mind, this was in the day before you could patent a new way of rolling toilet paper and claim you were an inventor.

“In 1948 he demoed a prototype of a speakerphone he invented in his garage,” Shaw junior says. “AT&T loved it. They made up a contract which said he signed over his past, present, and future developments, and asked him to sign it. My dad said no.”

Patents, of course, have an expiration date. They are also only as good as the amount of money you have to defend them. The upshot was that they expired long before they were commercialized, and as Shaw junior tells it, AT&T started innovating on them as soon as the 14-year expiration had passed.

That started a downward spiral in L.’s life that led to him selling his invention to the mob, and to his son finding fame and fortune as a jewel thief. Shaw Jr. left when he was 16 years old and started robbing the wealthiest people in the nation. He was a modern-day Robin Hood with one significant difference: He pocketed the coin. And he wouldn’t speak to his father again for 25 years.

“I did 2,200 jobs before I was 25,” Shaw told me. “We worked three months a year after that, and I was active for 22 years.”

As surely as apples fall to the ground, the long arm of the law caught up to Shaw Jr., and from 1975 to 1986 he was a guest of Uncle Sam in the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Fla.. Not too long after getting out, he also exited the crime family, meeting John Gotti face-to-face and resigning as a soldata in the mob.

“It’s called going on the shelf,” Shaw explains. “A lot of people think that you can’t get out of the mob alive, but that’s not true.”

In 1995 Shaw Jr. found his father living penniless in a bus station. He took him to Florida, bought him a Lincoln, set him up in an apartment, and very carefully took care of him: Shaw Sr. was a proud man, and not one to take charity easily. Shortly thereafter, junior decided to tell his father’s story in a documentary.

“It’s about closure for my father,” Shaw told me. “When you ask people who invented the conference call, what do they say? But if you ask who made Apple, they answer Steve Jobs.”

Source: YouTube

Walter Shaw, Jr.

And it was a tangential connection between Shaw Sr., Jobs, and Steve Wozniak that kickstarted Apple and even led to Job’s brush with the mob. Jobs’ and Wozniak’s first product was a blue box — they made about a hundred of them, selling them for $150 each, and using one to make prank calls like calling the Vatican, pretending to be Henry Kissinger, and demanding to speak to the Pope. That ended quickly when they were robbed at gunpoint for one unit. But it was a seminar moment.

“If it hadn’t been for the blue boxes, there wouldn’t have been an Apple,” Jobs later said, as Walter Isaacson recorded in his biography. “I’m 100 percent sure of that.”

Shaw Jr. spent the next decade getting into the movie business, partly with the help of Mickey Rourke. He got a script made, fundraised $1.8 million for the movie, and put a production crew together.

As a result, the movie is opening in New York at the Sunshine Film Festival on Saturday. And as it opens, a long, long journey is closing.

“My dad changed our lives,” Shaw Jr. says. “When he came into this world, we had rotary phones and human operators. Now we have conference calls and touch tone dialing.”

And, I might add, we have redemption for a wayward son, who is now honoring his fallen father.

So in Skyfall, 007 is using a 13-megapixel-equipped Sony Xperia T, running Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Sony has launched phones with Bond before, showcasing the K800i in Casino Royale and the c902 in Quantum of Solace. Perhaps Skyfall will bring a big dollop of solace to Sony this year, as its latest earnings have shown widening losses.

After selling just 30 million phones in 2012 so far – Apple sold 27 million and Samsung sold 57 million in just the last quarter – Sony is aiming for 50 million for 2013.

Source: Sony

Sony Xperia T

Bond, James Bond, does not use the phone’s built-in NFC, but he does flash the camera in a not terribly subtle product placement. The Xperia’s impressive 13-megapixel camera is fully accessible just 1.5 seconds from standby, records in 1080P high-definition, and includes Sony’s face and smile detection technology. And Sony included a relatively recent version of Android in the 4.55″ smartphone: Ice Cream Sandwich.

One neat feature for Bond fans: Sony is apparently including some exclusive Skyfall behind-the-scenes footage, wallpaper, ring tones, and more.

After all, who wouldn’t want the Bond theme as their ringtone?

Image credit: Skyfall

With textPlus, talk is more than cheap. It is free.

This company, which brings free texting and free calls to the masses, announced an $18 million round of funding today. The app brings free mobile communication to anyone with a connected device using the signal from 3G/4G/Wifi networks. It can bestow phone capabilities on iPods and tablets, as well as Android devices, Windows Phone 7, and Nokia products.

For those that already have a phone, textPlus can be used to talk or text for free, app-to-app. This is useful for staying in touch with friends living abroad, as international phone charges can be expensive. The company’s most well-known product provides group text messaging for people across multiple devices, without using SMS protocol. It also offers social features and photo sharing.

The app is sponsor-supported, which is what keeps it free. It serves 110 million people worldwide through the open network, and the recent boost will be used to enter new markets. Raine Group was the primary investor in this round, which marks textPlus’ fourth round of funding.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Matrix Partners, and GRP were former investors in textPlus, and the company has raised a total of $46 .3 million.

The parent company was founded in 2007 as Gogii. It has since rebranded to textPlus, to match its flagship product. The team is headquartered with Marina del Rey, California.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

So I finally picked up an iPhone 5 yesterday.

Astonishingly, iPhone 5 did not instantly take five pounds off my middle or make me devastatingly witty. Nor did my wife, excited by my new technologically-enhanced size, immediately turn into an eager groupie. In fact, if I recall correctly, the conversation when I came home featured the words “how” and “much” and “cost” rather prominently. It’s possible I mis-heard.

But it sure is a pretty nice little upgrade.

For the actual VentureBeat iPhone5 review … check here.

The slight increase in size makes iPhone better for both reading and watching. The reduced girth makes it fit better in your pocket. The lighter weight make you less anxious that a small-but-heavy objet-d’art will slip from your butterfingers. And the beefier battery — still almost full this morning after a charge yesterday around noon — makes you just a little less soup Nazi about ensuring your phone is fully charged before leaving the house in the morning.

One caution about the pocket thing?

Source: John Koetsier

iPhone5 next to my Google/Samsung Nexus

Be careful about bending over to tie your shoes with iPhone 5 in your front pocket. That one extra row of icons could completely mitigate iPhone 5′s inexplicable inability to induce amatory attitudes in your significant other.

I’m not really concerned about the aluminum-is-a-softer-metal scratch factor. Phones are tools, tools get used, and used things take wear. It’s a fact of life that I’m resigned to, and since I’m rabidly anti-case (anti anything that adds weight and bulk to my devices, actually), it’s something that I’ve learned to live with.

Besides, I picked white, which has fewer issues by all accounts than black.

Something I’ve noticed in my few short hours of playing with iPhone 5 is that the phone appears to have extremely good audio quality. Frankly, it was astonishingly good. Talking to a friend felt almost, at times, like being in the same room with someone. Which is interesting given that smartphones’ least-used feature, sometimes, seems to be the phone part. But with iPhone 5, I’m taking a renewed pleasure in using my phone as Alexander Graham Bell originally intended.

And, in true Apple fashion: one more thing is worth mentioning. This is a fast phone.

I’m not a big gamer — ask my kids, my copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warefare is still sitting around unused — but I do occasionally kill a few minutes on my phones. And while the extra speed doesn’t make me jump any faster in Temple Run, I’ve noticed much faster app load times.

Jetpack, for instance, which seemed to take agonizing minutes on my iPhone 4S (add some emphasis on seemed in that phrase), loads in six or seven seconds on iPhone 5 from a cold start. Everything else seems a bit snappier too.

All told, it’s a great update, and I’m happy with it. Not revolutionary but evolutionary.

That, I think, is for the iPhone 6.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Sprint has launched an innovative new service that could replace long and hard-to-remember phone numbers with simple names.

The service is called StarStar Me, and plays off the unique * character on phones that activates special features via “star codes” such as *69 to return the most recent call. For StarStar Me, pressing the star key twice followed by a name will connect you to that person.

For example, you could dial **John, if I was a Sprint customer set up with the $3/month option, to instantly connect with me. And you can do it whether or not you’re on Sprint — callers can also be Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T subscribers.

StarStar Me is an innovative service and a step in the right direction.

Why, really, should any of us have to know, or even have to save into our mobile devices, a long, complex series of digits in order to connect to another individual? It’s an archaic holdover from the early days of telephony when telephone numbers were actually a code that related to your physical location on the grid.

Moving to a system where identity supersedes specific details of technology is a good thing.

It’s what Apple is doing with iMessage, tying multiple modes of connection (emails, phone number) to one person, and delivering a message regardless of which device it actually arrives on. Google has been doing something similar for years with Grand Central, now Google Voice, which ties all your phones together with one number so that, regardless of whether you are using your mobile phone, office phone, or a temporary SIM with a different number while traveling, friends and colleagues can contact you with one number.

Eventually, these models should take the next step, similar to Sprint’s StarStar Me service: remove the number and simply tie an identity (name, username, handle) to a variety of accounts: some cellular, some email, some other communication modalities. But an identity system cannot easily be federated between multiple islands of corporate groupings.

That’s one reason why Sprint’s StarStarMe will have a tough go.

StarStar Me is provided by a mobile marketing company called Zoove, the “exclusive provider of StarStar numbers for the largest wireless operators in the United States.” You can bet that mobile giants Apple and Google both want to own identity and are not going to support a relatively small mobile marketing company’s identity system. Not when Apple has iMessage and Google has Voice, as well as possibly an iMessage/BBM competitor.

Even though they are not carriers, they may have a better chance of succeeding because identity is more than a phone number, and StarStar Me — being carrier-centric — is oriented primarily around phone numbers.

More challenges include the fact that Sprint will be charging $3/month for the service, meaning that you can have a simple identity … but it’ll cost you $36/year. I think that’s a non-starter for most consumers, and that identity should be baked into the platform. In addition, the service is voice-centric, lacking an SMS story beyond being configurable to automatically send a text message to a caller when you’re busy, and not even touching email.

StarStar Me sounds great. Someone needs to bring our islands of identity together in a comprehensive, universal way … or provide a DNS-like identity service that connects them all.

I just don’t think it’s going to be StarStar Me.

photo credit: Adam Foster | Codefor via photopin cc

Hat tip: TechCrunch

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

It’s something most people in business experience daily: talking on the phone with someone you don’t really know. Would you get better results if you knew more about the people on the other end of the line?

That’s the premise of CallApp, which is presenting at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara today.

“What we call ‘smartphone’ might be smart, might be a phone, but it’s definitely not a smartphone,” said chief executive Oded Volovitz at the conference.

The app is simple in theory: Collect all the phone numbers you can find, connect them to publicly available social media profiles, and present the information to users on their smartphone screens while talking. But with 500 million phone numbers and counting in the “universal crowdsourced” social contact book,” it obviously has some significant computational complexity.

“It seems to have a lot of powerful features, but I think perhaps the name of the company is a little too narrow in what they’re trying to address,” said Mark Sugarman of MHS Capital at the DEMO Conference. “They need to do a better job describing what the actual application does.”

According to Volovitz, CallApp helps users make better use of their time:

Source: CallApp

CallApp screen

“CallApp provides you with the information and tools you need to make better decisions and seize more exciting opportunities,” he told VentureBeat. “It helps you avoid wasting time on calls that don’t matter and to become more productive on the ones that do.”

Users seem to agree.

In the first 1o days on the app store, 25,000 people downloaded the app and used it over a million times, Volovitz says. Even better, they continue to use the app, with the average person accessing it over 500 times a month, according to Volovitz.

That’s huge engagement, massive loyalty, and — to use a somewhat old-fashioned phrase — incredible stickiness. The obvious insight: people who download CallApp are using it for every call.

CallApp is available on Android right now, and an iPhone app is just now in testing.

Founded in 2011, CallApp has raised over a million dollars from angel investor Moshe Lichtman, a former president of a Microsoft division, and Giza Venture Capital.

photo credit: splorp via photopin cc

CallApp is one of 75 companies and 6 student “alpha” startups chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

In his new book The Fine Print, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston tell us, among other things, what’s wrong with the Internet in America. The answer is fairly depressing: It’s too slow, too expensive, and … too controlled by a duopoly of AT&T and Verizon.

Japan has fiberoptic Internet available to many homes with speeds of 100 or 200 megabits per second, and, believe it or not, an available 1 gigabit per second service. (At least one place in the U.S, Chattanooga, Tenn., can get an equivalent speed.) South Korea is still the king of Internet speeds, however, with an average 17.5 megabits per second to all homes.

Average speed in the U.S., meanwhile is a measly 5.8 megabits per second — actually a decrease from U.S speeds of 2011, according to Royal Pingdom. It’s the barely visible blue line in the chart below:

Source: Royal Pingdom

Average global internet connection speeds.

That slower speed comes, unfortunately, at a higher cost than many other countries.

Hong Kong gets 500 megabits per second for $37 a month. Other major international cities, such as Paris and Berlin, get 100 megabits per second for $40. But the same speed in Washington, DC, comes at $105, courtesy of Comcast, and Verizon’s 150 megabits per second service sets New Yorkers back $159.95.

Typically, service providers point to the vast distances of North America as the reason why speeds are slower here. VentureBeat contacted both Verizon and AT&T for comment, but neither have responded (yet).

The question remains for cities as densely packed as New York: Why such high cost for such comparably slow service?

Johnston’s answer is that Americans were better off with Ma Bell’s monopoly. Adjusting for inflation, he says, phone service is 230 percent more expensive than in 1984.

That’s a future even Orwell didn’t anticipate.

photo credit: Maryam (one bored chica) via photopin cc

That is despite the fact, of course, that the latest smartphone market share numbers say that Android and iOS dominate smartphone sales with a combined 82 percent market share, and that Samsung, Apple, and LG have a combined 60 percent market share of all phones sold, including feature phones.

Almost all of those phones have virtual, not hard keyboards.

Ouch.

The surprising fact, of course, is that Nokia is right: all other things being equal, a physical keyboard is probably superior to a virtual one. Most can touch-type, type faster, and make fewer errors with an actual keyboard.

There’s only one little problem: All other things are decidedly not equal. And the difference between a big screen for big media and a small screen with limited space means that most consumers who buy smartphones are choosing the big screen.

But the funniest part of the Nokia blog post?

Mastering predictive text (aka T-9) should be a rite of passage for every young (or old!) person getting to grips with their first mobile phone.

My first mobile phone was a Motorola flip phone in the last 1990s, and I had a succession of dumbphones since. I never, ever learned T9. Now, of course, I never will.

Did you?

photo credit: fensterbme via photo pin cc, KhE 龙 via photo pin cc

Some of the decisions are totally understandable: NFC for phone-as-a-wallet and other communications has actual hardware implications. And high-intensity games designed for dual-core processors are not going to run well on older, slower phones.

Some are harder to understand, such as Internet Explorer 10, with its faster JavaScript and built-in HTML5 support.

And some are just downright painful, like the Nokia mapping technology offering built-in turn-by-turn driving instructions. When Apple releases iOS 6 some time this fall and joins Google in offering this standard on new phones, driving instructions will become table stakes for competing in the smartphone world. Not having this feature on just-released hardware is not going to sit well with early adopters.

Some of the new features, however, will be available in an upgrade. The new start screen and new Metro look and feel will come to Windows Phone 7 users in a 7.8 update soon. Microsoft seems to believe that 7.8′s look and feel is equivalent to a full Windows Phone 8 experience. In addition, VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell reported that “enthusiasts will be getting early access to over-the-air updates in the future.”

Other goodies could come with the 7.8 update as well. For one, I’d be surprised if mobile IE 10 didn’t eventually make it in.

The hard reality is, however, that new hardware comes with new features. For example Siri, Apple’s personal assistant technology, is not available on older Apple phones — and if Apple’s past decisions are any indication, it will likely never show up on past iOS devices. And let’s be honest: it’s not like there’s a huge installed based of Windows Phone users that will miss out. Most of the critical mass that Microsoft needs in mobile has yet to be built.

That would, of course, be easier to do with the full and eager support of all Windows Phone users.

Image credit: Seinfeld

Design is determining the winners in everything mobile. The most successful players are focusing on one thing: How to make products, services, and devices as compelling and delightful as possible – visually, and experientially. MobileBeat 2012, July 10-11 in San Francisco , is assembling the most elite minds to debate how UI/UX is transforming every aspect of the mobile economy, and where the opportunities lie. Register here.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

It’s said that with all of our technological advancements, the world is getting smaller and smaller, but it sure doesn’t feel like that when you have to travel for business frequently. It’s difficult to be away from home for long periods of time, but fortunately those aforementioned technological advancements are pretty helpful for staying in touch with your loved ones, even when you’re hundreds of miles and many time zones away.

Frequent business travelers probably already know the classic tips, like using a calling card to save cash or getting an international SIM card to cut down on the wireless bill, but there are several other things you can do to keep in touch while far from home.

Calling: In addition to a calling card or international SIM card there are other options that make calling home a bit easier on the wallet. Consider setting up a Google Voice number which will ring right through to your phone and is generally significantly cheaper than a standard long-distance call on your cell.

Video Chat: While most smartphones these days have a video chat feature, the calls themselves could set you back a pretty penny unless they run over Wi-Fi. Consider using Skype instead; it comes as a mobile or desktop app so it can be used on either your computer (only requiring internet access) or your phone. If you use the mobile app, keep your phone in airplane mode to avoid international roaming charges, even while on the ground.

Blog: Many people already have a social networking profile or personal blog set up; indeed, there are a variety of options including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Tumblr as well as more traditional platforms like WordPress and Blogger. Share your trip with your loved ones by posting photos to Instagram or Tumblr, videos to YouTube, or blogging about the experience on your own blog. Friends and family can follow your trip as you blog it, making them feel like they’re right there with you.

Games: If you’ve got your laptop or tablet, you can also keep in touch in a fun ways like playing games with friends and family while far away. Sure, you may be on the other side of the country, but as long as you have access to WiFi you can still play Words with Friends with your spouse, coworkers, or kids. Likewise, if you’re a dedicated gamer, consider using a service like Steam that can connect you to other players.

Fun for Kids: There are many creative ways to keep in touch with your kids while you’re traveling, such as making an audio or video recording of you reading a favorite bedtime story with a good night message that can be played back for kids as they go to sleep. Or, take a favorite toy or stuffed animal with you on your travels (“Flat Stanley” is a popular example). Pose for photos with Stanley at notable landmarks during your trip and post them online so that your kids can see where you and Stanley have been. Another option is having kids send faxes to the hotel, and sending some back, so that you can exchange messages and artwork. They might get a kick out of the antiquated technology.

Airport image via ShutterStock

The company claims that it’s the first major VoIP company to offer effective wireless access. Previously, customers had to connect Ooma’s VoIP box physically to their router, which greatly limited where they could keep their home phones.

The wireless adapter could help Ooma, which has garnered a considerable amount of hype over the last few years, and raised more than $50 million in funding, to attract even more users. It utilizes Ooma’s PureVoice HD technology to avoid call degradation, thanks to “advanced voice compression and adaptive redundancy”, the company said in its release today.

Ooma is now on its second-generation VoIP box, the Ooma Telo, which launched earlier this year. Ooma’s wireless adapter also allows the Telo to function as a wireless bridge, which lets devices without wireless connections connect to the box to access the Internet. That could be useful consumers with game consoles or Blu-ray players that lack wireless access.

The company also announced today that it will now offer its Bluetooth adapter, which lets consumers answer cellular calls on Ooma’s system, to all customers for $30. Previously, only the company’s premium subscribers, who pay $10 a month for additional features, had access to the Bluetooth adapter.

The company is still holding true to its original promise of free VoIP service for standard customers. If you forgo the $10 monthly premium features, Ooma only costs you the price you pay for the Telo box and adapters.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Ooma has over 222,000 customers so far, and it boasts that it ranked first among phone providers in a recent Consumer Reports survey.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple’s iPhone operating system is now more popular than Research in Motion’s BlackBerry smartphone operating system, according to the latest usage statistics from comScore.

Both take a back seat to Google’s Android, which has a growing lead as the most popular smartphone OS.

More than a quarter of all smartphone users had iPhones as of the end of May, according to comScore’s survey of more than 30,000 mobile phone owners. The numbers put Apple’s iOS ahead of RIM, which now accounts for slightly less than a quarter of all smartphones. Google’s market share of the smartphone market grew the fastest of all smartphone manufacturers between February and May and now accounts for nearly two-fifths of all smartphones, according to comScore.

Apple launched the iPhone with Verizon in January, just one month before comScore’s last survey about smartphone users. It’s likely that the jump in Apple’s market share is a result of sales of the iPhone on Verizon’s wireless network.

Nearly 70 percent of all phone owners used text messaging at the end of May, up from 69 percent in February, according to the data from comScore. Two-fifths of smartphone owners used the mobile browser predominantly on the phone and nearly two-fifths of all smartphone owners used apps. The number of smartphone owners using their phones to play music also rose between February and May.

The survey found that Samsung was still the top handset manufacturer, while Apple phones accounted for around 9 percent of all phones sold.

Here’s the breakdown of market share for smartphones from comScore:

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In a bid to help those trying to reach friends and family in Japan following the country’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have all announced today that they will be offering free calls and messaging to Japan

Here’s how it will work: AT&T will waive the cost of calls and messages to Japan for the month of March, while Sprint and Verizon will offer free calling until April 10. The offer is only available to postpaid subscribers, or those that pay a monthly fee. AT&T will also offer residential customers up to 60 minutes of long distance calling, while Verizon will extend its free calling to landline customers completely.

While the free calling will surely give all of the companies involved some PR buzz, it will also be useful for many in the US. And it’s also downright classy compared to Microsoft’s clumsy attempt at a donation campaign with its Bing search engine this weekend.

There’s no word yet about T-Mobile offering a similar deal, but I don’t think it will be able to hold out much longer. With its three biggest rivals now offering free calls to Japan, T-Mobile will seem both heartless and ignorant if it fails to act. T-Mobile announced this morning that it would also be offering free calls to Japan.

Via Engadget, Phone Scoop; Photo via NASA

The company has a web-based service that lets its users track and automate phone calls through a public cloud server. That means companies with call centers can route calls to a remote server and have them interact with with a number of applications, like a virtual receptionist. Developers can build web services to work with any existing software and build on all the features they need to control every phase of a call with only a few clicks of a mouse.

Ifbyphone recently snapped up Cloudvox to get access to its open application programming interfaces (APIs) that let companies that use call centers develop applications for their software. Cloudvox basically provided web developers with everything they needed to build applications that could route and interact with telephone calls.

The basic services include anything from a virtual receptionist, to a voicemail box, to the ability to register a vote by phone. Users can pay more to gain access to more in-depth analytics and interactive voice applications. The pricing ranges anywhere from $50 to $75 a month.

The Skokie, Ill-based company raised $9.1 million in an earlier round from Apex Venture Partners, Origin Ventures and Bluecrest Capital Finance. The most recent round brings its funding to $17.1 million.

[Photo: Esparta]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Cox Communications, the third-largest cable provider in the US, announced today that it’s launching a mobile phone service that it will bundle with its cable and internet service, Bloomberg reports.

The cellular service is launching today in Orange County, California; Omaha, Nebraska; and Hampton Roads, Virginia. The company is hoping to take on phone companies like AT&T and Verizon who have been steadily encroaching on Cox’s TV market share.

Cox says the service will be “unbelievably fair” to consumers by giving money back for unused minutes, and the company will also bundle free TV, Internet, or landline phone service. The company will offer alerts to consumers as they approach their monthly minute limit, and will give 5 cents back for every unused minute (up to $20 a month).

24 percent of its customers said they would switch to its mobile service in May, the company said.

Cox will use Sprint’s 3G network initially, but the company is also working on a network of its own, according to the company’s vice president of wireless, Stephen Bye. The company will offer wireless service only in areas where it operates — it has no plans to become a national carrier. Its monthly contracts will start at $39.99, and the company will offer free calling to other Cox cellphones and landlines.

Cox will offer an array of Android handsets initially, including the HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone and LG Axis. The company will expand its offering based on customer demand, according to Bye. The company will sell the phones at its Cox Solutions Stores.

The news makes Cox the first cable company to pursue a wireless service offering, as well as the first to offer a “quadruple play” of services (wireless, TV, internet, and landline phone). Cox and other cable companies have a long history of joint ventures to enter the wireless business — often with Sprint as their partner — but none seem to have taken off as planned.

I can certainly imagine Cox customers being tempted by wireless plans bundled with other Cox services. But building its own network seems foolish when the company can easily lease service from major carriers. The company may eventually save some money by building its own network, but there’s no guarantee it will be able to recoup its costs.

Photo via sfxeric