They’ve been doing a lot of work helping operators such as Telefonica and manufacturers such as Motorola establish Virtual Developer Labs to help mobile developers gain access to pre-release hardware via DeviceAnywhere — and often at heavily subsidised rates.

We talked to DeviceAnywhere about that, then watch as I surprise the chap by demanding to make a phone call from one of the devices there in the data centre rack on the stand.

Are their handsets actually real? Watch the vid as we actually we prove it…

Here’s the video:

‘Long numbers’ (i.e. numbers that look like normal mobile phone numbers, but usually only receive SMS) are really, really useful when you don’t want the hassle of a shortcode. I’ve been using them for years here in the UK for an array of different services that I dreamt up.

I most recently built a private Twitter-style SMS system for a client using some UK inbound numbers. Love it.

You can find TynTec’s offering here.

(By the way, we’ve got a video of TynTec’s top chap, Michael Kowalzik, that we filmed at Mobile World Congress. It’s coming soon along with all the other footage!)