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U.S. Operator Sprint Unveils Family Locator Service

Sprint Uses Cell Phone Networks to Locate Family Members

by Anton Shilov

[ 04/17/2006 | 04:09 PM ]

Sprint, the No.3 mobile service provider in the U.S., has unveiled a service that will help parents to locate their children or other family members that carry mobile phones. However, some analysts believe that for roughly $10 per month the locator service may not be adopted by wide audiences.

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“Sprint Family Locator is a valuable tool that can help parents and guardians have a better sense of their children’s whereabouts when they’re apart. This is the latest Sprint innovation that uses GPS technology to improve the way families connect, communicate and locate one another,” said Danny Bowman, vice president of product marketing for Sprint.

Sprint’s service shows data such as street addresses to which a child is close and the estimated accuracy of the reading, which could range from a radius of 2 yards around the child to a radius of hundreds of yards, according to Reuters news-agency. Family members can use mobile phones or computer software to locate others. U.S. cell network operators are obliged to employ location technology so that safety workers could locate emergency callers, the Family Locator is a way to make money out of the technology that should be used by law.

“$9.99 monthly service fee, and a slim consumer demand for people-finding services, may limit Sprint's success at using the latest offer to boost its family customer numbers,” Marina Amoroso, an analyst with Yankee Group, is reported to have said.

“Before this service comes down in price, I think it will be marginal,” she said, estimating that about 2 percent of U.S. subscribers are interested in people-locating services.

Sprint said its location service would work on 17 of its phones and these phones could be used to locate children using as many as 30 phone models.