The regulator strikes back
Rating: good news for location-based services
By Annie Turner
The US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, has issued notices of apparent liability for forfeiture totalling USD 2.825 million to Sprint Nextel, Alltel and US Cellular. This slap on the wrist is because the three have failed to comply with the FCC’s ruling, known as E911 Phase II, that stipulated mobile carriers must be able to provide location information to the emergency services to 95% of the subscribers using handsets with the appropriate technology.
In other words, when subscribers dial 911, the police, ambulance or fire service can find them quickly, even if the caller isn’t sure of their whereabouts or is too injured or frightened to be able to impart information coherently.
Interesting that it’s taken the thick end of three years for the FCC to take action to enforce its ruling, but if it really puts the boot in, with this being just the first kick, then an interesting by-product would be to kick start commercial services that rely on handsets knowing where the are.
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2 Responses to “The regulator strikes back”
Anne, there are already a number of excellent commercial location services available in the US. Personal navigation has been a bright spot for the US mobile data biz.
There is a “mobile locator” service for enterprises to track their employees deployed last year by Nextel before the Sprint merger.
One of my favs is from Vindigo and incorporates reviews from individuals across the US, predominately women, and is called Bathroom Finder. Details such as diaper changing facilities and cleanliness have been collected into a web database for a few years and Vindigo licensed that database for their service.
There are social networking location and friend locator applications as well.
I could give you a list, but that would make this more of a blog post than a comment.
Comment made on September 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 amHi Mobile Jones, not Annie - but Bena. Thanks for this. I wrote a huge article on LBS and mobile search for the Mobile Search Analyst - but we tend to focus more on Europe; with examples as we have the info to hand.
The Bathroom finder sounds great -but - I have never been a huge fan of Friend Finder services as they work to about 100 meters in Europe (which can make a huge difference!).
Comment made on September 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pmIf you have written a blog on this please feel free to link to it - if you would like to write one on GoMo (yes, I am being cheeky!) I will buy you a large one next time we meet.
But thanks for your comments - they are great, interesting and we really appreciate it.
(Annie is out till Wed and if she sees this she might also respond!). Bena
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