Paul Boutin is reporting the finalists in the TechCrunch40.
This has been a closely guarded secret for several weeks now but Paul spotted the names on banners in the Palace hotel!
One of the names is Pat Phelan’s Cubic Telecom – the only Irish finalist out of over 700 entries – well done Pat.
There are some other great names in the list. Pat really has his work cut out for him but I have no fear he will do us proud.
Update: Robert Scoble is predicting Pat to win outright!
Pat Phelan’s Cubic Telecom have released details of €5m worth of investment they have received. Cubic Telecom is the parent company of the Roam4free and Yak4ever brands.
From the release Cubic has raised a
EUR3.5M investment from private backers in order to develop a suite of innovative global mobile and home phone products under the Cubic Telecom brand, together with its own international virtual carrier network. A further EUR1.5M has been raised to fund a series of international launches of products and services in the coming six months.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, Cubic Telecom are also the only Irish company to make it to the final 100 of the uber prestigious TechCrunch 20.
Pat Phelan’s Cubic Telecom company has been selected to be one of the finalists in TechCrunch 20 for their Roam4free product. What is TechCrunch 20? From the site:
Twenty of the hottest new startups from around the world will announce and demo their products over a two day period at TechCrunch20. And they don’t pay a cent to do this. They will be selected to participate based on merit alone. In fact, we’re even offering a $50,000 cash award and lining up other in-kind services and awards from a generous group of corporate sponsors.
There were over 700 submissions from 26 countries so making it to the last 100 finalists was a considerable achievement. In fact, as far as I know Pat’s is the only Irish company in the final 100. Well done Pat – go for it boy!
I have spoken to Pat at length about their new Roam4free product set due out in the coming weeks and if they deliver half of what Pat is promising, it will set the mobile world on its head.
Pat Phelan is persistence personified!
He launched Allfreecalls.net earlier this year to some considerable acclaim only to have to shut it down after legal action by AT&T!
Pat has been plugging away in the background ever since trying to get the service back up and running again.
Yesterday Pat announced that Allfreecalls.net is back up once more, this time re-branded as Yak4ever.com.
Unlike the Allfreecalls service, Yak4ever users need to register their number and have to enter a list of (up to 10) numbers they will be calling. This is for legal reasons according to Pat.
Michael Arrington has removed Allfreecalls from his Dead Pool (for now, he says!).
Irish and UK readers should note that this relates to the US service only, Allfreecalls.ie and allfreecalls.co.uk continue to operate as previously.
[Disclaimer: I host these sites for Pat]
I’m writing this post in Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport waiting to board a flight to Chicago (and then another to Vegas) for Microsoft’s MIX07 conference.
I’m looking forward to the conference, the line-up of talks looks really impressive and I’ll get a chance to meet some great people.
What is really cool as well is that Pat Phelan has ensured that my phone charges while I’m there will be minimal! How did he do that? Well, he mapped a Cork number (+353212349915) to my TruPhone number.
Now anyone who calls me from Ireland can call me on the Cork number Pat provided and, as long as I’m in a wifi zone, I will receive the call without incurring any roaming charges. And with Truphone, all outgoing calls to landlines are free until the end of June!
The only time I expect to incur call charges is if I have to call someone on mobile.
Excellent, thanks Pat.
A couple of days ago I posted that Pat Phelan was in some trouble. This evening Pat confirmed it:
From Pat’s blog:
Our allfreecalls provider in Iowa today took flight due to increasing pressure from a large USA based carrier.
We are working on getting a new number up.
We expect to be back in business on Monday afternoon.Please watch the site for the new number and this blog for updates
So much for FCC rules in the USA.
I would like to personally apologize to all our customers and can assure you that we are working as fast as humanly possible to rectify this.
Unfortunately it is timed to perfection as we have issues with access to engineers over the weekend.
I just got word that Pat Phelan is in some serious trouble – can’t say more at this time but watch this space and keep your keyboard fingers ready to try to help him out when this story breaks (probably in the next 24 hours).
Pat Phelan is organising a blogger dinner/meetup to coincide with the visit to Cork of Shel Israel and Rick Segal in October.
The dinner is on in the Taste of Thailand restaurant, Bridge Street, Cork on October 17th at 8pm. Leave a comment on Pat’s site if you want to attend.
I know I’ll be there – I’m looking forward to having a chat with Shel again and I can’t wait to meet Rick – the author of the funniest post on the Web 2.0 controversy.