

loopt getting the mobile companies on board - johnrob

How is loopt able to get the mobile companies on board with their service?  I would think that loopt would significantly reduce phone minutes and text messages, which is the life blood of those mobile companies.  Sprint charges 3/mo for the service, but I don't think that would make up for the loss of usage.
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jsjenkins168
Getting on-deck with the carriers is not easy. The carriers will sometimes
require payment which can be in the millions. So plan on raising lots of
capital if you want to do it.

You can always offer your software outside of the carriers official services,
but they usually have it setup so that if a user installs unapproved 3rd party
software it can void the user's contract. Plus the average person doesn't
really install 3rd party software on their phones yet (I hope the iPhone
changes this after the SDK release).

An easy solution is to offer your service off-deck, as a WAP site or a Flash
Lite site. But obviously services like Loopt are not possible because you dont
have access to specific phone hardware such as the GPS unit.

