Verizon Wireless launches LBS

Verizon Wireless today unveiled GPS location-based services available over a single handset. Called VZ Navigator the service initially offers detailed mapping and directions applications similar to the vehicle navigation systems sold in automobiles.

The service will launch over a new Motorola handset, the V325, which Verizon made available today, but the application could potentially be made available in a wide variety of Verizon Wireless handsets. The technology uses the GPS One receiver embedded in all of Qualcomm’s newer CMDA chipsets.

Though the functionality has not yet been enabled in most of the phones carrying Qualcomm baseband processors, Qualcomm has been actively pushing the technology outwards into its installed base, integrating it also with its BREW application development platform, which Verizon Wireless also uses as the basis of its Get It Now data service.

Last year, Sprint launched an array of location-based services over GPS, seeking to leverage the technology for both E-911 compliance—as opposed to use cellular triangulation—and as a commercial service. Sprint estimated that by the end of 2005, 80% of its Sprint handsets were GPS-enabled, but only 67% of Nextel phones were E-911 compliant.

For its own navigation service, Verizon Wireless is charging $10 a month for unlimited monthly access, or a one-off rate of $3.000 for 24-hour use.