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The US carriers continue their pursuit of non-phone devices to add new revenue streams to their 3G and LTE networks. Verizon has taken an investment in existing home control ally 4Home, while AT&T's key partner in new formats, Jasper Wireless, has announced a product to get connected devices to market more quickly.

At January's Consumer Electronics Show, Verizon Wireless talked up its connected home plans, using wireless home area networks, combined with phones as remote controls, to monitor and manage smart grid, security and media. At the event, the telco teamed up with home control services firm 4Home and demonstrated an LTE-based system with functions ranging from surveillance to media and energy management.

4Home's ControlPoint software is the basis of a system that Verizon says, by using LTE, can achieve coverage of the whole home, plus cameras outside the house, reaching areas not touched by existing wired broadband or even Wi-Fi connections. The partners also use 4Home's Fluid platform, which supports smart grid applications from a web browser.

Now the carrier has put its money where its mouth is, with Verizon Investments, part of the Verizon Venture Group, taking an undisclosed stake in the smaller player. It is likely to be less than $5m as this is the usual ceiling for this particular unit, which focuses on seed funding. The money was part of 4Home's Series B round, which totaled $6.8m.

Meanwhile, Jasper Wireless has announced a software-based network adapter that simplifies the process of building and managing connected devices. This will be offered free of charge to any device manufacturer and should enhance AT&T's ambitious program to get a whole spectrum of consumer electronics with embedded wireless onto its networks. Embedded products need to be low cost and reach the market rapidly, as carriers like AT&T move towards "hyper-segmentation". In May, the telco hired Jasper to enable its strategy, handling instant, activation, provisioning and billing for the new products so they can be connected immediately they are purchased.

Jasper's latest offering aims to reduce delays to connected device launches - it claims 60% of these are delayed by application redesign needs, and up to 80% of device applications show "aggressive or abusive" behavior when connected to the mobile network. Its virtual network adapter, Jasper Link, claims to reduce the development cycle by up to six months. It provides an out-of-the- adapter that handles the wireless network interaction, so the developer has no need to understand network behaviour. It includes a rules-driven engine and remote device management plus standards-based open APIs.

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