Casabi (www.casabi.com) doesn’t use the term “purple minutes,” but the broadband digital content and services company clearly understands the concept of adding value to vanilla-style VoIP voice minutes.

“Fundamental to the value of digital telephony is taking advantage of digital,” stated David Weinstein, Casabi co-founder and Vice President of Marketing/Business Development. Casabi will take advantage of home broadband and VoIP by enabling devices around the home to do “much more than voice” as is the perevailing VoIP service model. The current VoIP business model, according to Weinstein, is driving prices down, but not providing much else.

Enter Casabi. The company has built a combination of services and SIP-based hardware to extend SIP to non-voice applications. A parallel SIP user-agent with unique IDs will be used to deliver non-voice related data to in-home web-enabled handsets – and ultimately other devices – from a push-type services center that gathers content, optimizes it for delivery to the home end-user device, and delivers it. Examples of push content include weather reports, calendar alarms, and traffic updates.

“To the cable guys, this is their dream,” said Weinstein, elaborating that cable companies want to move content beyond the settop box and deliver it to alternative devices around the home. Other devices beyond handsets under consideration include an information screen for the kitchen and a “smart” alarm clock that can deliver weather information and overnight sports scores.

Perhaps the most intriguing piece of the puzzle that Casabi offers is their business model. They are targeting carriers and believe that the Casabi smart appliance solution can deliver “stickiness” to VoIP providers, including ILEC carriers. While the company wouldn’t discuss or confirm any of their customer relationships, Casabi will be exhibiting their technology in AT&T’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Weinstein says Casabi can work with carriers and VoIP providers in two modes. Initially, they can act as an ASP to deliver content and then migrate the software technology to the carrier for operation on their own. He sees ILECs, cable companies and independent VoIP providers as being potential customers.