Thursday, January 24, 2002

SignalSoft, the developer of the Wireless Location Services Software suite, on January 23 announced that Vodacom, the leading South African mobile operator and member of the Vodafone group, has signed a contract with SignalSoft's partner, Compaq, to deliver location-based services to Vodacom's 6.4 million GSM subscribers in South Africa. 

Vodacom is the first South African mobile operator to invest in advanced location-based services to be delivered over voice, Short Message Service (SMS), Wireless Internet Gateway (WIG) and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

The service contract covers deployment of SignalSoft's Location Manager and services based on call routing. 

Location Manager is a flexible location gateway that manages location information from the many available location technologies and links that location information with a wide variety of location-based applications. 

The call routing capabilities allow Vodacom to offer its subscribers location-based services such as finding Vodacom's closest outlet, where subscribers can recharge their pre-paid mobile subscriptions; find the closest restaurant or cinema, or obtain local traffic reports. 

The applications have been delivered on Compaq's NonStop Himalaya Intelligent Network Platform.