Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Avis institutes cell-phone-based navigation system from Motorola

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2003 14:29:09 -0500

Avis institutes cell-phone-based navigation system from Motorola

December 9, 2003

BY HOWARD WOLINSKY Business Reporter

Starting today, it's going
to be harder for
out-of-towners to get lost
in Chicago.

Avis Rent a Car System
Inc. is launching its new
Avis Assist service with
turn-by-turn "talking
directions" for cars
available at O'Hare and
Midway airports and
eventually will make it
available at all locations.

Avis Assist is a
cell-phone-based system
known as VIA-MOTO
and developed by Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc.

The system not only runs on wheels, but on legs, too.

"You can carry the phone with you, and get directions to find the locations
you're looking for," said Scott Deaver, executive vice president for marketing
at
Parsippany, N.J.-based Avis.

Motorola plans soon to begin promoting VIAMOTO technology, which
combines cell-phone technology with the location-fixing Global Position
System satellites and a Java operating system, for the business market and
ultimately for consumers.

The Chicago airport locations are part of a Midwestern rollout of the Avis
Assist
program, which charges $9.95 per day for the service. Avis Assist is now
available in more than 35 cities in the Midwest and East Coast, including
Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, New York City, Atlanta, Dallas Philadelphia,
Boston, Washington, Miami and Orlando. The service will be deployed in the
South and Southwest next year.

Talking navigation systems have been available in rental cars for several years,

typically starting with mid-sized cars. But Deaver said Avis Assist is the first

system using cell phones and also the first made available for all cars in the
Avis fleet.

He estimates that about 20 percent of Avis customers will use Avis Assist.
"We have tested several systems over the past three years, and never had the
degree of customer acceptance and enthusiasm as we did with this one," he
said, adding that the system is intuitive and easy to use.

Since many car renters already have cell phones, Deaver said, Avis decided
not to sell phone services on the cell phones.

Consumers punch in location information or connect with the call center to
provide an Avis Advisor with a destination address or desired point of interest
in
the area. A route is then calculated and downloaded to the mobile phone.

Although Avis did not opt for this feature, VIAMOTO allows users to enter
navigation information over the Internet, said Lee Callaway, marketing manager
of VIAMOTO. He said the system also has other features, such as listing
names and addresses by category--such as restaurants, ATMs, tourist
attractions and hotels--that are close to where the user is and plans to be.

Callaway said that weather and traffic information based on location could be
made available and eventually local events, such as fairs and movie times,
would be added.

John Jackson, a wireless/mobile technologies analyst with the Yankee Group
in Boston, said VIAMOTO is "a significant inaugural step into the
location-based services arena. It is a low-cost solution because car rental
companies don't have to throw a big [computer] box into the car itself. It is
much cheaper to upgrade the handsets than to swap out big boxes bolted into
a car."

The system uses Nextel phones and digital maps from Chicago-based
Navigation Technologies.

Jackson said Motorola hopes that VIAMOTO and related navigational services
will trickle down to the business and consumer markets. "This service
environment is very immature, and it may take a few years to catch on," he
said.

Phones enabled with navigation features will become increasingly common.
The Federal Commun-ications Commission has adopted "enhanced 911" rules
requiring cell phones by December 2005 to have GPS or other locational
systems built in to help with emergencies.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-fin-moto09.html

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