As family tracking services seem to be gaining traction in the mobile handset arena, California-based WaveMarket is emerging as a major force in the market. The mobile location-based search and services company announced its sixth commercial deployment this week, partnering with Canadian communications provider MTS Allstream to bring GPS tracking to its wireless customers.

The technology allows users to locate family and friends by using satellite positioning to determine the location of their wireless devices. Subscribers can also set up regular location checks, allowing them to be notified when a contact has changed locations. The service is permission-based, so only those who have given permission can have their location tracked. Typically parents use the service to monitor their young children from any Web-enabled computer.

WaveMarket’s Canadian deployment is the latest in a trend of GPS family tracking services expanding their worldwide footprint. Its Family Finder service is also available from Aliant and Bell Mobility in Canada and Vivo in Latin America. In the United States, WaveMarket’s biggest customer, Sprint, has been deploying its location-based services suite to power its tracking service since April of last year. Alltel also recently announced the launch of Axcess Family Finder, a WaveMarket-powered GPS tracking application. But the first carrier to launch a family-location solution, virtual mobile operator Disney Mobile, shut down in September. The service may relaunch in Japan, however, over mobile operator Softbank’s network.

WaveMarket faces competitive pressure from software developer AutoDesk, whose locator service is currently being deployed by Verizon. However, Rhonda Jobe, marketing manager for the National Scientific Corporation, said that WaveMarket’s style of packaging and pricing is the first of its kind that she’s seen. The NSC also offers a child-tracking device that uses local, short-range RFID, allowing parents to track small children or anyone who might wander away. The device sets off a beep on the "parent" device if the “child” device wanders beyond a preset area.

Jobe said that she has found that people like the idea on an intellectual level. The NSC had a similar product to WaveMarket that parents could hide in their children’s cars to track them while they were driving. This product suffered in its timing – the market was not yet ready for it, Jobe said, adding that WaveMarket might suffer from the wrong audience rather than the wrong time.

“I think the WaveMarket idea is good but don't know if they have targeted the correct market for this,” Jobe said in an email interview. “Teens are just going to turn it off or get another phone if they think they're being watched. And the teens that don't mind being watched won't be going to the wrong places. I can see a market for hikers, field trips, etc., where there is a possibility that something could go wrong.”

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