An application that initially took root in the wireless market could be coming to the wireline market soon. Home Phone Tunes, a two-year-old start-up company, chose NXTcomm to launch Ringboxx, a device that plugs into a home phone jack to provide ringtones for home phones.

“You can play different songs based on the caller line ID, or you can assign specific songs to specific phone numbers,” explained Kevin Kutcher, vice president of marketing for Home Phone Tunes. Alternatively, the phone can cycle through the user’s playlist. Home Phone Tunes has seen strong interest from service providers in its new offering.

“We’re in conversations with all of them,” Kutcher said. “They see it as part of a landline retention strategy.”

Kirk Cameron, CEO of Home Phone Tunes, said the company’s research showed that 80% or more of people surveyed said they were interested in ringtones for their home phone. “If it were free, we’d have 84% of the people,” he said.

As a result, he anticipates that some service providers may offer a Ringboxx free to customers who sign up for triple-play services for two years. The Ringboxx also will be available through retail outlets for an introductory price of $69.95, which will include $10 worth of ringtones.

Ringtones cost about $3 each and can be downloaded from a server operated by Home Phone Tunes. Customers will be able to order more tones from a large library using a credit card. If the customer got his or her Ringboxx through a telco, the telco will receive a share of the ringtone revenue. Each Ringboxx can store up to 10 ringtones. A memory card is available for those who want larger storage capacity.