Verizon Wireless, the No. 2 US mobile phone 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 mobile phone or computer.
The Chaperone-branded service from Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group, follows in the footsteps of a similar service that Sprint Nextel introduced in April. Entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney is also set to offer a similar service when it starts selling mobile phones this summer.
Such services are aimed at bringing in revenue from a location technology that US wireless service providers are required by law to put into mobile 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 US 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 (£5) 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, 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 and Samsung Electronics.
Talkback
This is precisely what we in the UK are lacking. Not only could we then pinpoint children but also stolen phones. And let's face it, if you're worried that big brither may be watching you then perhaps you might be doing something you shouldn't.