Vodafone UK Find & Go: web maps, local search, mobile satnav

22 Jul 2008

Vodafone UK and Telmap have been partners with Multimap, the UK's specialist online mapping service owned by Microsoft, to introduce Find & Go. The new service links a web mapping portal with local search and navigation on mobile phones.

Vodafone gives costumers the possibility to search on their PCs on the Multimap website and download the result their mobile phone. Find & Go's maps as well as local search and driving directions are free of charge; for £5 per month users can subscribe to the "turn-by-turn" navigation feature.

According to Al Russell, Head of Internet Services at Vodafone UK, Vodafone wants to provide access to the best location based services on mobile phone for the company's costumers.

In case of GPS connection is unavailable, Find & GO uses cell-ID as a fallback positioning technique. The software is featured on 14 handsets in total: 6 GPS embedded and additional 8 using a Bluetooth GPS key ring. On the Nokia N78, 6120 and N95 8GB, a three months turn-by-turn subscription is included, with other Find & Go compatible handsets one month is garanteed.