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I’ve been meaning to write about RingBranch for some time. But now that they’ve opened up some beat invites, it’s probably time to talk about them.

RingBranch is a relatively new Atlanta based startup. Basically the idea is a service that allows cell phone users to break free of their free minute circles and make more free calls. So if you have one of these cell phone plans that allows you to pick a phone number or numbers that you can make/receive calls from, using RingBranch you can effectively grow the number of phone numbers you can call to or receive calls from for free - free cell phone minutes that is.

How is that? RingBranch allows you to store up to 100 numbers that you can call from any phone by calling your RingBranch number. The beauty of this is that if your cell phone dies, gets stolen, etc. then you can still call your most important contacts. In fact, this is the impetus of RingBranch when co-founder and CEO Allen Graber was in New Orleans and he needed to call people but his cell phone was dead.

Even more important, I think, is the recent news that the U.S. Customs Service is seizing cell phones and downloading everything on them.  Yeah, that’s pretty scary but if you save all of your stuff on the network, then maybe you’ll be safe from this physical copying of your data. Of course that doesn’t stop these agencies from getting subpoenas on providers and downloading your information en masse.  But I digress…

I haven’t dug too deeply into this but the company says their technology is based on Microsoft technologies like .Net and SQL server. They’re also using some other telecom hardware and software but I’m not totally sure what that encompasses at this point.

Like I said, the company has opened up beta slots.  There is no cost, currently, for using the service although that may change as the service matures and moves beyond beta.  One can expect that this service will necessarily be priced less than “normal” per minute charges per carriers and is basically an arbitrage opportunity for RingBranch.

Also note that similar, but not identical, services may be obtained by using Grand Central (which is now owned by Google) or Mobivox.  Grand Central is free but Mobivox costs money to use.

The company has been self funded to date.  I suspect that will change at some point but the company has not shared any fund raising plans with me as of yet.

Disclosure: Allen Graber was an angel investor in my previous company but, as usual, that doesn’t mean I won’t abuse him. ;-)