Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel crack open location services: Carriers to allow wireless application developers access to GPS data

Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless each appear to be easing their stance on sharing subscribers’ location information with partners, efforts that put weight behind their bluster about openness.
Sprint Nextel announced it will open its location platform to location aggregators WaveMarket Inc. and uLocate Communications Inc., allowing the partners to serve as wholesalers to third-party developers. The operator hopes to spur development of mobile marketing campaigns and other applications by allowing developers to access a handset’s location via WaveMarket’s Veriplace and uLocate’s WHERE – separate platforms built on Web-service APIs.
“We’re excited to help application developers create innovative location services for Sprint customers by working with these platform enablers,” Len Barlik, Sprint Nexetl’s VP of wireless and wireline services, said in a prepared statement. “Both platforms have powerful but intuitive privacy systems that ensure the appropriate permissions are obtained prior to accessing location information.”
“What’s significant about (Sprint Nextel’s announcement) is that historically, to get location information from a carrier, you have to have a business arrangement with them,” said uLocate VP of Marketing Dan Gilmartin. “Now (we) can act as an aggregator directly with those third parties. They can work through us; they don’t have to go to Sprint.”
The move grants WaveMarket and uLocate access to network-based location information – as opposed to only assisted GPS data – enabling them to pinpoint device positions without requiring a user to send a request for an application or service.
“Network-based location means that the network knows where the device is at all times,” Gilmartin explained. “It’s very much an opt-in (feature); we’re very much focused on the privacy aspects of something like this. What it does is make location easier to access for more developers. And it makes these types of services available for effectively all consumers on the network, rather than just those with GPS chips in their handsets.”
Interestingly, it also underscores the importance of the nascent location-aggregation space. Carriers have long been fearful of sharing location information, but are increasingly likely to share the precious data with one or two trusted partners, who in turn will sell the information to third-party developers. WaveMarket, uLocate, Loc-Aid and a handful of others are hoping to fill that void as middlemen.
Verizon Wireless relaxes GPS
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is loosening its policies regarding location. The operator has drawn substantial flak from critics in recent years for withholding GPS functionality from developers on high-end handsets, thereby requiring customers to use only location services approved by the carrier. But in an e-mail to customers, Verizon Wireless has promised to unlock the data on three handsets next year.
New devices running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile operating system including the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Omia, Samsung Saga and HTC Corp. Touch Pro are slated to add open, stand-alone GPS in the first half of 2009, according to an e-mail obtained by Brighthand.com and confirmed by the operator.
The move could allow customers to use third-party location applications like Google Inc.’s Maps for Mobile.
However, a Verizon Wireless representative said the news does not mark a change in the company’s policy, saying “Nothing has changed.”
Regardless, the moves underscore two key trends in mobile, according to uLocate’s Gilmartin: an increased level of trust in the privacy of location platforms, and the traction location-based services are quickly gaining among consumers.
The location-services issue is notable following noise from Verizon Wireless, Google, Skype and others about open access to wireless networks. Verizon Wireless has promised to allow all suitable applications and devices onto its network.