New Geobrowsing Services Will Customize, Localize and Enrich the Personal Mobile Broadband Experience

XOHM^TM WiMAX mobile broadband customers can have information customized for their locations and personalized to their needs with new Sprint (NYSE:S) ecosystem agreements that help pioneer subscriber location services.

Sprint is building a WiMAX high-speed mobile data network which will debut commercially in Baltimore this September. Other cities are expected to receive service in the fourth quarter and beyond. “The XOHM mobile broadband experience will be largely location-centric,” explained Rick Robinson, vice president of XOHM Services. “We’re creating a new dimension to online presence, making points of interest near your current location easy to identify and access. This ‘geobrowsing’ effect provides location context and will give XOHM members a richer personal broadband experience when they’re mobile.”

Unique location and personalization capabilities will customize information for the user at home, at work or places in between. Customers with WiMAX-capable devices such as laptops and other portable devices will have location-based information at their fingertips, easily finding businesses, entertainment or events and quickly checking weather and traffic to get there. They can search for interests, see results plotted on a map, acquire detailed information, get directions and assemble friends conveniently while mobile.

The location-enabled mobile experience will span a range of devices such as laptops, mobile Internet devices, media players, cameras and car navigation. XOHM is enabling web services application programming interfaces (APIs) so a broad collection of service developers and device partners can use location to offer increased utility for XOHM members. XOHM will offer these location capabilities with a corresponding privacy policy to make sure XOHM members are informed about how XOHM will handle their data. At launch, a XOHM portal will offer location-based content from leading brands including:

• uLocate Communications Inc. of Boston, Mass. the primary partner in building XOHM’s location enabled mobile experience, is providing its WHERE™ platform and leading friend finding application Buddy Beacon® to connect XOHM customers with their favorite people, places and things. Through WHERE, XOHM users will have access to local information including restaurant reviews, news, events, weather and much more. Select launch partners on the WHERE platform include Yelp, Eventful, Topix, NAVTEQ and Accuweather.
• Yelp Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., the leading Web site for local business reviews, provides relevant user reviews and ratings for anything local, from restaurants to doctors and more.