ATLANTA-Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it plans to shut down two former AT&T Wireless Services Inc. location-based services in 2006 as it continues to integrate AWS’ network.
The carrier said it will kill the mMode LBS offering “Find Friends” and “Find Things Nearby” effective Jan. 1, 2006. While the former AWS network has network-based LBS capabilities, Cingular’s legacy network can’t support such offerings yet, according to a spokeswoman.
“Cingular has maintained this service for our mMode customer base as long as feasible even as we were merging our networks,” said Cingular’s Kelleigh Scott. “But now that our active number of subscribers that use this service on a weekly basis has dwindled significantly, we have determined that this is the right time to cease our LBS services on mMode.”
Scott said Cingular will continue to offer localized services including 10Best and Go2Directions.
AWS’ mMode service was modeled after NTT DoCoMo Inc.’s wildly successful iMode service. DoCoMo was an investor in AWS. The mMode LBS applications use tower triangulation to determine the location of customers.
