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 her 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 Albuquerque to Chicago. "As soon as our plane touched down," said Rypkall, "every person in the row in which I was seated was on his or her cell phone calling a spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend telling them of the trying time they had and how glad they were that there was someone they could talk to."

This experience sparked an idea. Rypkall proposed to her company an add-on service for its subscribers that would allow them to call an assigned number and be greeted with personal messages, customized through artificial intelligence software, to meet their needs for "comfort and reassurance."

The service, PeopSync®, costs $7.95 a month. It allows subscribers to call an unlimited number of times to hear up to 483 messages tailored to his or her situation.