Find It knows where you are

US OPERATOR Sprint Nextel will introduce a local directory service forits mobile subscribers which utilises location awareness, according to Reuters. To be known as 'Find It', the service will cost a mere $2.99 a month service, and should be available from April 3rd [2006].

It will offer all the usual yellow pages style information, supplied by Infospace, but users won't have to key in their post code or a special code - because the handset already knows where it is.

Curiously the service is reported as working with only 70 per cent of Sprint Nextel's subscribers. So that implies that the service uses triangulation techniques rather than satellite location.

Although support for A-GPS (assisted GPS) is supported as standard in Qualcomm's 3G chipsets, it's unlikely that 70 per cent of Sprint Nextel customers have such a handset.

It does illustrate, however, just how difficult it is to integrate two networks when one was using iDEN and the other is using cdmaOne. µ