Aussie software drives Vodafone NZ 'home zone' mobile offering

Stuart Corner
Friday, 04 July 2008 10:03

Your IT - Home IT

Accurately limiting the 'home zone' in these services is key their commercial viability. Similar functionality was pioneered in Australia by Hutchison on its 3G network, but later abandoned only to be revived just months before Telstra's announcement of plans to close its CDMA network forced Hutchison to do the same -  without roaming onto Telstra's network Hutchison could offer only very limited coverage. The word was that the technology was not sufficiently location specific and users were able to enjoy home zone tariffs over large areas

Seeker Wireless claims that its SeekerZone technology deployed by Vodafone NZ overcomes such limitations.
SeekerZone, first reported by iTWire in October 2006   was "created expressly to support fixed mobile substitution strategies," and, according to Seeker Wireless "Unlike HomeZone solutions currently deployed in Europe, the Seeker solution provides much smaller home zones, meaning mobile operators can reduce the revenue leakage caused when subscribers attempt calls some distance from their actual home...Results from recent operator trials and live deployments have shown that by locating mobiles more accurately, Seeker is able to greatly reduce the size of home zones by up to 45 times compared to existing Cell-ID based home zone systems."

The technology relies on a small application running in the cellphone which is able to determine its location by measuring the relative strengths of all the base stations within range. The handset then reports back into the network when, and only when, it is moved into or out of the home zone. This enable the operator to apply the appropriate tariff and other service parameters of the converged offering, but without massive investment in additional technology and without loading up its network and central systems to manage the determination of the handset's location.