Vodafone UK to launch find and go

Vodafone UK and Telmap, the world leader in advanced mobile mapping and navigation solutions, have teamed up with Multimap, the UK’s specialist online mapping service, to introduce Find & Go. The launch of Find & Go conveniently converges PC location based services with the mobile phone.  Vodafone customers can for the first time search for a destination on their PCs on the Multimap website and send the search result to their mobile phone free of charge.

Using this information customers can then obtain driving directions from Multimap’s Driving Direction Service or receive directions for turn-by-turn pedestrian or driving navigation using the Find & Go service. Multimap’s Driving Directions Service is available exclusively on Vodafone live! for the next three months.

Through mobile network positioning Vodafone’s Find & Go makes it much faster for customers with GPS embedded handsets to identify their current location and search for places or landmarks immediately, without the need to wait for their phone to pick up the satellite signal.  This means searching for locations is now possible even when a customer is indoors or out of the GPS signal range. 

In addition, Find & Go suggests route alternatives based on traffic conditions and estimated times of arrival, so that customers get a complete mobile navigation experience.  The service is designed for both in-car and pedestrian navigation and features the very latest 3D maps and directions with the added benefit of spoken instructions announcing street names. It also references millions of points-of-interest such as hotels, restaurants, shopping centres and attractions.

“Building on the success of Vodafone SatNav we wanted to provide even more customers with access to the best location based services on their phone.  To do this we’ve made the mapping and local search available to all customers without a need to subscribe,” says Al Russell, Head of Internet Services at Vodafone UK.  “With some great new features Find & Go now gives customers everything they need to find and travel to their chosen destination with the utmost ease.”

Jeff Kelisky, CEO of Multimap adds: “Customers are expecting increased convergence of their online and mobile experiences. This deal makes it simple for Multimap.com and Vodafone customers to send direction information to their mobile phones from the web so they can navigate while on the go for a seamless experience. We will continue to innovate and harness the combined technology of Multimap and Microsoft to provide more comprehensive information and a more connected user experience for mobile phone users.”

“Our partnership with Vodafone takes mobile navigation further than ever before, using mobile and web to deliver a totally new experience” said Oren Nissim, CEO at Telmap. “Find & Go’s new features provide consumers with an experience that goes beyond turn-by-turn navigation, the availability of real-time local information and the technology to get you there go hand-in-hand when delivering tomorrow’s mobile location services.”

Available on 14 handsets in total, (6 GPS embedded and additional 8 using the Bluetooth GPS key ring) Find & Go’s maps, local search, and driving directions are free of charge; with an option to subscribe to the “turn-by-turn” navigation service for £5 per month.  Three months subscription is included on the Nokia N78, 6120 and N95 8GB and one month with other Find&Go compatible handsets.

Customers can purchase the service from any Vodafone retail store, through telesales or directly from Vodafone live!.