Verizon Wireless to offer mobile chaperone service

Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 U.S. cellphone service provider, plans on Monday to launch a wireless service that lets parents check their children's whereabouts and alerts them when they venture out of bounds.

Parents can use the service to set up geographic limits and receive text alerts if their children, who also carry phones, go too far from home. The service also lets parents check where their offspring are via a map on their cellphone or computer.

The Chaperone-branded service from Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - news) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L), follows in the footsteps of a similar service that Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE:S - news) introduced in April. Entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS - news) is also set to offer a similar service when it starts selling cell phones this summer.

Such services are aimed at bringing in revenue from a location technology that U.S. wireless service providers are required by law to put into cell phones so that safety workers can pinpoint the location of 911 emergency service callers.

Mobile packages designed for families have become key to growth at U.S. operators, which currently sign up as many as 60 percent of their new subscribers via family discount plans, according to technology research firm Yankee Group.

Verizon Wireless did not say how many of its customers have children in the 5-year-old to 9-year-old target market but an executive concurred with the Yankee estimates on family plans and said the market for this service could be big.

"You're looking at a good percentage of customers that have families with children," said Jamal Jones, Verizon Wireless manager of consumer products, in a conference call with reporters on Friday.

The Verizon service costs $9.99 a month for just the location-viewing feature and rises to $19.99 a month if the parent also opts for a boundary-setting feature. Sprint charges about $9.99 for its service.

Verizon is initially launching the service just for parents with children using the Migo phone from LG Electronics Inc (066570.KS), a four-button phone designed especially for children. Verizon started selling the Migo in November.

Executives said Verizon Wireless may develop a version of the service for older children, using more sophisticated phones, but they did not give details.

Parents can access the service using about 10 different phone models sold by Verizon Wireless including several phones from LG and some phones from Motorola Inc (NYSE:MOT - news) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. (005930.KS).
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Now, if you ask me, Verizon has it backwards. If I were a parent wanting to use this service, here's what my thought pattern would be: I'm not sure I'd want a 5- to 9-year-old kid to have a cell phone... and also, a kid that age I'd be keeping tabs on anyway. If I were using this service, I'd want it to keep tabs on teenagers, who are driving or have friends who are.
 
I would hope that "the 5-year-old to 9-year-old" is some kind of typo and should be "the 15-year-old to 19-year-old",because wtf is a 5yr old doing not being supervised anyhow.:eek5:
 
Till they catch on and leave it under a bush so they can go to the mall still.

What retardicity.
 
A.B.Normal said:
I would hope that "the 5-year-old to 9-year-old" is some kind of typo and should be "the 15-year-old to 19-year-old",because wtf is a 5yr old doing not being supervised anyhow.:eek5:
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guess you aren't a parent in America

yeah I knew where my kid was all his life (even now and he's 18)
but most self absorbed Americans would find this a great service
as they seldom know where da brats are
they know where they are supposed to be...

besides if yer 15\19 year old ain’t where he or she is supposed
to be, then it’s too late
prolly cuz when they were 5\9 years old ya let ‘em run wild…
 
C'Mon Les if ya call the kid and he answers ya can pin-point him

If he don't answer then mebbe the homeless dood in the bushes will

hell this is merely a means to extract profits from the GPS feature
present in all new phones

like putting a damn camera and web browser on the things

and the silly consumers lap it up
 
First thing I did with my new phone was turn the fuckin' GPS OFF unless it's an emergency. Like I need to carry a homing device.
 
Leslie said:
Till they catch on and leave it under a bush so they can go to the mall still.

What retardicity.
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All they have to say is they turned it off ,because they stopped at the church and forgot to turn it back on.:elaugh2:
 
I made sure mine was turned on
I ain't a feared of anyone knowing wares eye is

and it could only werk to mah advantage
 
on one of them crime shows they turned a cel phone on remotely

tell them kiddies to pull the battery if they wanna go incognito
 
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