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Issue Date: April 2003

Breakthrough in mobile digital mapping

1 April 2003

An innovative new mobile map service - MobiMap - has just been launched, giving cellphone users access to street and road maps of South African towns and cities. With the MobiMap system cellphone users can request and receive digital maps on their phones. The service is available on most models of cellphones.
MobiMap was developed in South Africa by Location Based Systems in conjunction with MapIT, a supplier of digital maps in South Africa. MapIT is a sister company of MapStudio and is jointly owned by the NetGroup and Johnnic Publishing.
"Location based systems is a huge growth industry and we are proud that this cutting edge digital mapping application was developed in South Africa," says Braam Brink, a founder and chief operating officer of LBS. "This may well be a world first in that the full spectrum of mobile phone users, including lower-end users, will have access to information contained in the well-known MapStudio street finders." This new service is a three-way alliance between LBS, MapIT and Exactmobile, a supplier of mobile logos, ring tones and picture messages available to users of all South African networks. Exactmobile have brought the marketing and billing expertise to the table.
The initial service offered is a simple street finder application. "To date, users of lower end phones worldwide have not been able to receive maps on their handsets via SMS," says Brink. The SMS version of MobiMap currently allows all users of Nokia picture SMS enabled phones to receive an annotated map of the requested street and area. Although the resolution of this map is limited by the screen characteristics of the phone, it is a useful tool when map books are not available. Maps of various scales can be requested depending on the level of detail needed.
The MobiMap service is also available on all WAP enabled phones. The WAP service provides higher resolution maps to be sent to suitable phones. These maps can be in colour on phones with colour screens. According to Brink, further advanced digital mapping services will be made available to cellphone users in the near future. The MobiMap services will be extended to provide a rich content service where points of interest (POI) such as restaurants, cinemas, ATMs, stores and other locations of interest to the user will be provided on the map.
The user will be able to select the point of interest and obtain up to date information about it. This information will be updated continuously providing the user with the latest information about the POI. These points of interest can be customised according to user preferences and will be fully interactive on appropriate phones. This means that the user will be able to, for example, contact the specific POI by selecting the phone details or website address. A routing service, providing directional information from one location to another, in text and on maps, will be introduced later this year. Where the cellular networks provide this, the current location of the user will be utilised to provide maps showing the quickest, shortest or most scenic route between the user's current location and any POI.
Cellphone users can visit www.lbsmobile.com for exact instructions to use the MobiMap service.
For more information contact Braam Brink, LBS, 021 424 6960, braam@lbsmobile.com


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