Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (1741)	10/28/1998 9:35:00 AM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Respond to of 3178

Not your average Telephony Company> THE END OF PHONE TAG Linx Communications has attracted its first round of venture capital for a telephone service that integrates your phone, fax, email, and pager into one number, which can trace you to your office, car, or home. The startup will announce tomorrow the $5 million funding from Advanced Technology Ventures and One Liberty Ventures at Venture Market East, the Red Herring's conference on financing emerging technology companies, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The technology may not be popular among those who already feel that they cannot escape the telephone, but mobile professionals who miss many important calls, or those who are sick of playing phone tag with colleagues and friends, will love it. Research by AT&T shows that only 25 percent of all telephone calls actually reach the intended party. Linx president Joe Gately says using his company's universal number raises that figure to 80 percent. "Our subscribers are getting 3 times the number of calls most people receive." Indeed, Mr. Gately received the news of the closing of the venture capital round on his cellular phone while sitting in a pub in Ireland where he was on vacation. The service uses an automated agent, which asks for the name of the caller, then rings three phones at the same time -- typically car, office, and home telephones. The recipient answers, hears the name of the caller, and can decide whether to accept the call. "It's 1 to take the call and 2 to send the send the message to voice mail." Too bad if you don't want people to know you're screening calls, because with three phones ringing "people know you can answer that call if you want." The Linx game plan The startup didn't begin its life in a garage, but its small manufacturing office space was not much more glamorous. "Our one luxury was a threadbare carpet," Mr. Gately says, "but I guess that's what happens when you don't take a salary for two years." The newly funded company moved this weekend into a "real office," right off the 1-28, Boston's technology corridor. In addition to the funding, ATV general partner Michael Frank and One Liberty Ventures general partner Joseph McCullen Jr. will be joining the startup's board of directors. Linx has spent two years building a suite of products and a small subscription base of 2,000, mostly through word of mouth. It has $1 million in annual revenues. With the new funding, plus $3 million raised in debt, Linx will buy switches in local areas and expand its network from Boston and Washington to Silicon Valley and later to the rest of the nation. Mr. Gately will tell conference attendees, most of them venture capitalists and Massachusetts-based emerging companies, that Linx is building a nationwide telephony network to provide enhanced services such as the universal number, as well as automated email notification, email-to-fax conversion, and voice-activated dialing. The company wants to link switches with a private fiber-optic network giving users access to the system from various locations using a local number, much the way many national Internet Service Providers offer local access numbers to their networks from various points around the country. Other players Mr. Gately believes the time is ripe for this type of enhanced service given the deregulation of the telecommunications industry, along with trends such as increased telecommuting. He's not the only one. A handful of startups have also offered follow-me telephone services, though rather than ringing three phones simultaneously, they ring one after another, which can lead to the caller hanging up. Linx also differs from other companies by offering local access to its universal number, as opposed to toll-free (800 number) access. The big telcos will also want to offer such services, but may be happy to outsource them. Or perhaps one will just swallow up the little startup Linx Communications and its thin layer of enhanced telephony services.