Finland’s Benefon unveils GPS-enabled GSM phone

For all its practical uses, the global positioning system-enabled GSM handset of Finland’s Benefon will be a vital tool for safety and security-conscious Filipinos.

Besides the standard GSM features, the Benefon cell phone, introduced in the Philippine market this week, is "equipped with global tracking and positioning capabilities, employing GSM-GPS satellite positioning and Mobile Phone Telematics Protocol (MPTP) location tracking technologies."

These technologies can be deployed for a variety of solutions ranging from resource management to personal safety. Simply put, the user of Benefon’s Esc! model can track the location of another Esc! user via the GPS navigator and maps. Of course, the one being located needs to send the OK signal.

Benefon executives admit there’s a "cultural issue" in introducing such a revolutionary wireless communication tool. Imagine, Filipino wives now having a device to track down their philandering husbands. Talk about "creating a new culture."

Besides husband-tracking, the handset comes in handy in dire situations that demand emergency assistance such as assault, robbery – or kidnapping. The Esc! handset has an emergency button which the user can programmed in a variety of ways to make use of the phone’s positioning technologies.

Explains a Benefon brochure: "Customized as an emergency button, when activated it will instantly send the user’s location via SMS to a network service center and also open a voice line. Upon receiving the request, the network service center will then take the necessary action: send an ambulance, notify the police, etc."

Of course, the Esc! handset can be part of any adventurer’s backpack. Equipped with maps, the phone can guide a mountain climber, for example, giving him his exact distance from the peak. Or someone lost in the metropolis, searching for, for instance, a street where a relative or a friend lives.

Thanks to the work of Cellmode International, a software development company, the digital mapping of Metro Manila and the entire country was made possible – and now available on the 15-liner, 640-character (yes, a big screen) Esc! handset.

As Jorma Nieminen, president of Benefon, sums it up: the handset has vital uses for security, resource management, business-to-business, private outdoor and health purposes.

Another Benefon handset, the dual-band GSM "Track Pro," goes beyond what the Esc! offers: SOS messages show information on location, time, speed, direction (exact coordinates, mind you!) and battery status. The Track Pro platform is currently being set up at the RCBC Plaza in Makati City and will be ready by the first quarter of 2002.

Benefon has two other mobile handset models: the "Q" and the dual-band, dual-SIM "Twin."

Benefon and its local partner, Multitel International Holdings Inc., launched the new handsets this week at the Mandarin Oriental, coinciding with Finland Day. Finnish Ambassador Raimo Anttola, National Telecommunications Commission chief Eliseo Rio Jr., Nieminen (who, incidentally, was the first president of Nokia until 1988 when he formed Benefon) and executives of Cellmode and Multitel were present during the media event.

Benefon and Multitel have a trade partnership agreement, making it possible for the Finland-made phones to be marketed under the Multitel co-brand.

Multitel has a 28 percent stake in Cellmode International and 60 percent equity in Cellmode Phils.