Sprint Announces Host of Location Technology Partners for WiMAX Network

• Posted: Sunday, September 07, 2008
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Mobile WiMAX, WiMax

By Lynnette Luna

Sprint's Xohm service has signed on a slew of partners that Sprint says will enable the operator to offer location-centric WiMAX service.

"The Xohm mobile broadband experience will be largely location-centric," said Rick Robinson, vice president of Xohm Services. "We're creating a new dimension to online presence, making points of interest near your current location easy to identify and access. This ‘geobrowsing' effect provides location context and will give Xohm members a richer personal broadband experience when they're mobile."

Sprint, which is launching commercially in Baltimore next month, said customers with WiMAX-enabled devices such as laptops and other portable devices will have location-based services easily available. For instance, users will have the ability to search for businesses, weather, traffic and have the results plotted on a map. The location-enabled mobile experience will span a range of devices such as laptops, mobile Internet devices, media players, cameras and car navigation.

Sprint's location partners include:

uLocate: The primary partner in building Xohm's location enabled mobile experience that is providing its Where platform and friend-finding application Buddy Beacon to connect Xohm customers with their favorite people, places and things. Through Where, Xohm users will have access to local information including restaurant reviews, news, events and weather.

Yelp: A Web site for local business reviews, provides relevant user reviews and ratings for anything local, from restaurants to doctors and more. The reviews can be searched and sorted by category or shown in a map view, with access to Yelp.com for details on any of the three million local reviews.

Eventful: Will provide users with listings of local events displayed in a map view. Customers can select sub-categories of interest, search for events and click through to Eventful.com to get more event information and purchase tickets.

Topix: Will provide local news based on current location as a summary, with an option to read full stories and others at its site.

Navteq: Will offer Xohm customers Navteq traffic real-time local traffic and commuter updates with links to the Traffic.com Web site for additional detailed construction, incident and drive time information.

AccuWeather: Will provide three-day forecasts based on users' current locations. An easy link to AccuWeather.com mobile Web site gives more forecast details, radar/satellite images, and more.

Google: Will contribute local search capability along with additional features and functionality from Google Maps.

Openwave Systems: Will provide the location platform that enables Xohm partners to use location to offer applications.

Autodesk: Will provide a standards-based interface and geospatial services, such as addresses, ZIP code and city/state information, to enhance location within the Xohm network. [FierceBroadbandWireless]

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