Tracking the hubby and kids, WaveMarket takes off

Despite anticipated consumer hesitations, earlier this year ABI Research predicted that, within five years, 335 million North American consumers would subscribe to LBS on their handsets. GPS capabilities were originally added to cell phones so that 911 emergency calls could be tracked. Now, the relatively low price of the service over mobile devices, typically around $10 per month depending on the provider’s plan, makes mobile LBS a viable way to also keep track of young children or elderly family members, who were the NSC’s biggest customer, according to Jobe. The service also acts an affordable alternative to stand-alone navigational devices, which typically cost anywhere from $200 to $600 from companies like TomTom and Garmin.

Tasso Roumeliotis, CEO and founder of WaveMarket, said that LBS is a natural upsell and a great way for operators to offer value-added services to families rather than just through lower-margin items like ring tones and games. He is certain that the family locator service and navigation services, both branded by carriers, will be the two applications that every single carrier will launch as GPS becomes more widespread.

Allyn Hall, director of consumer markets research for InStat, said in an e-mail interview that WaveMarket’s technology looks like an interesting offering that addresses one of niches in the LBS market space. The analyst believes LBS is one of the hottest opportunities for cellular operators and solution providers to get into. That being said, if users take the service too far, he does anticipate privacy issues arising.

“There are already concerns about privacy and ‘big brother’,” he said. “Applications of this ilk are sure to further raise these concerns. While tracking pets, livestock, small children and those with severe cognitive disabilities is easy to accept, tracking of older children and healthy adults is more problematic for all involved. I suspect that these concerns will slow the development of this sort of LBS.”

WaveMarket’s family service, targeted at younger teens, children or elderly, works around this problem by enforcing strict transparency between the operator and family, as well as between the parent and son or daughter.

“Parents think it’s a distinctive right of theirs to protect their kids, and this is a tool for them to do so,” Roumeliotis said. “Their privacy, as important as it is--what takes complete precedence for [parents] is their safety. That is why this service is so important.”

As the billpayers and essential owners of the phones, parents also have a right to see where their handsets are, Roumeliotis added. Children, who often battle to get a cell phone at increasingly younger ages, have the option of being tracked or not carrying or purchasing the phone at all. A more disconcerting issue Roumeliotis does anticipate is a consumer’s right to privacy from advertisers using a consumer’s information to send them mobile advertisments. But with a strict process for data protection in place and a chief technology officer with a resume that includes the U.S. Defense Department, Roumeliotis doesn’t see this an big problem. Location-based advertising has real potential, he said, but only as an opt-in or requested service.