5 August 2008
Cell phone company offers comfort and reassurance
... for a fee
Montgomery, Ala. -- While on a recent business trip, Erin Rypkall made a
discovery. Rypkall, a
senior account manager for Celluliar Systems, Inc., a cellular telephone
service catering to
 politicians,
major league baseball players and used car salesmen, noticed that most
of the calls made by his fellow business travelers were not business
related at all. Instead, calls were made to friends and family members
and generally centered around the trials and
tribulations of the traveler.
As an example, Rypkall sited an event at the end of a rather long and
tedious flight from Chicago to Albuquerque.
"As soon as our plane touched down," said Rypkall, "every person in the
row in which I was seated was on his cell phone calling a spouse or
girlfriend telling her of the trying time he had and how glad he was
that she was there for him to talk to."
This experience sparked an idea. Rypkall proposed to his company an
add-on service for its subscribers that would allow them to call an
assigned number and be greeted with a personal message, customized
through artificial intelligence software, to meet his need for "comfort
and reassurance."
The service, which will cost $7.95 a month, allows subscribers to call
an unlimited number of times to
hear up to 483 messages tailored to his or her situation.
Rypkall explained that the service is being tested in Kansas City,
Boise, and here in Montgomery. If testing proves successful, Celluliar
expects to roll out the service nationwide in a couple of months.
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