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Wireless users willing to pay $10 or more for location capabilities

LOS ANGELES—Driscoll-Wolf Marketing & Research’s latest survey on consumer interest in location-based services found, among other things, that 53 percent of those surveyed who use a cellular phone at least once a week would pay $10 or more for location capability on their phone.

Approximately 61 percent of frequent cellular users (more than 41 calls per month) are willing to pay for location-based services, the study said.

About 50 percent of those respondents who own a car worth $50,000 or more said they are interested in stolen vehicle tracking, compared with 41 percent of the total respondents.

The study also included responses from eight focus groups. Driscoll-Wolf found that most focus group participants favored a portable device over an installed device for accessing location-based services. Those in favor of an in-vehicle device would pay about $400, on average, for the device.

The majority of the respondents also said they prefer having a live operator for security-related services, but prefer automated services for navigation, traffic alerts and other non-security services.

Many respondents expressed concern about the potential loss of privacy and who would be able to track their location.

The survey results were based on responses from about 13,000 people across various demographics, geographic locations, household size, income and cellular phone ownership.

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