Friday, February 06, 2009

South Korea - mobile location services

Increase in Registrations for Cell-phone Location Tracking

The communications industry is enjoying an increasing number of new subscriptions for its location tracking service. The service allows subscribers to track their children or lover's whereabouts, and make emergency calls. The number of average monthly subscriptions for SK Telecom's service was once around 500-600. The figure skyrocketed to 1,000 within two days this month.

Subscribers can specify up to two people to track. When users connect to the internet through their cellular phones, they can pinpoint the location of nominated cell phones. In emergencies, calls are automatically made to the two specified individuals if a particular button is pressed for a long time.

KTF, another major carrier, saw new monthly subscriptions increase to 3,600 within just two days, from the average of 600 to 700.

LT Telecom said it had 3,000 new subscribers for its location tracking service in two weeks from Jan. 25, when the serial killer Kang Ho-sun was arrested. Its average monthly subscriptions previously stood at a mere 100 before the sudden surge.

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