Sprint and Safely Help Families Manage Wireless Phone Usage with Innovative Mobile Controls
Written by Sprint
Monday, 05 December 2011
New Sprint Mobile Controls will allow parents to set phone use limits by time of day or week, see daily calls, text messaging and application activity
OVERLAND PARK, Kan., & EMERYVILLE, Calif.-- The wireless phone is the number one tool teens use to communicate. More
than 75 percent of children ages 12-17 now own a wireless phone.1 With many schools banning wireless phone use during class time and
family dinners being interrupted with texts, parents are looking for
solutions to help teens use their phone responsibly.
“Sprint is pleased to give parents’ tools and information to help better
manage their teen’s and families’ wireless usage”
Sprint (NYSE: S) announced today new Sprint Mobile Controls powered by
Safely, a division of Location Labs, that will allow parents to see rich
graphical representations of how their family calls, texts and use
applications and to lock phones remotely at specific times.
Sprint Mobile Controls, along with Sprint Family Locator, Sprint Drive
First and Safely Social Monitor powered by Safely, are part of a suite
of family services offered by Sprint to help parents better stay
connected to their children and help protect their physical and virtual
safety.
Parents can sign up and learn more about Sprint Mobile Controls by
visiting www.sprint.com/mobilecontrols.
Key services that are available include:
Easy-to-read dashboard of phone usage, including voice and text
messages broken down by time of day.
Seeing who your son or daughter has been calling or texting recently –
and how often.
Quickly and easily setting phone use limits by time of day and day of
week.
Establishing an allowed list of phone numbers from which your child
can receive a call or text.
Seeing a list of your child’s contacts with an associated picture
ranked by overall texting and calling activity.
Viewing what apps your child is downloading to their phone.
Choosing up to three anytime apps that your child can use when their
device is locked.
Ability to set optional alerts.
Allowing your child to override phone restrictions in case of an
emergency.
Setting alert notifications for new contacts, or School Hours and Late
Night time periods.
Setting Watchlist contacts: Receive alert notifications when your
child communicates with a Watchlist contact.
“Sprint is pleased to give parents’ tools and information to help better
manage their teen’s and families’ wireless usage,” said Fared Adib, vice
president-Product Development, Sprint. “With Sprint Mobile Controls,
Sprint Drive First and Sprint Family Locator, Sprint offers parents a
comprehensive and innovative suite of applications to ensure their teen
is using their wireless phone responsibly.”
Sprint Mobile Controls is available on all Sprint CDMA Android
smartphones for $4.99 per month per line and includes a 30-day free
trial. At the end of the trial, customers will be charged the $4.99
monthly rate unless they cancel service at www.sprint.com/mobilecontrols.
The service will be offered to BlackBerry® devices and other
operating systems in the coming months.
“We are excited to be launching another service with Sprint,” said Tasso
Roumeliotis, CEO of Location Labs, creator of Safely. “Sprint Mobile
Controls leverages our mobile platform, strengthens our longstanding
relationship with Sprint, and gives parents greater confidence about
letting their kids engage with mobile phones.”
Sprint Family Locator
Sprint Family Locator is a location-based service that uses Sprint's
state-of-the-art GPS technology to enable a parent to use a phone or PC
to locate a child’s phone on a map. The service also gives the address,
surrounding landmarks and accuracy of the phone's location within a
specified radius. Parents can also set up safety checks that alert them
if their child is not at a designated location at a specific time.
Sprint Family Locator costs $5 per month to locate up to four phones.
For more information and to register, visit www.sprint.com/familylocator.
Sprint Drive First
Sprint Drive First is an application that automatically locks a mobile
phone when a car is moving more than 10 mph, disabling phone
functionality, directing incoming calls to voice mail, and silencing
distracting alerts for emails and text messages. Anyone texting the
driver will receive an automated message indicating the person they
texted is driving. A locked device displays a home screen with exit and
emergency 911 buttons to override the app. Sprint Drive First can be
overridden if the user is a passenger in a car, on a bus or train, but
the parent or account holder can choose to receive notifications when
the service is overridden. Sprint Drive First costs $2 per month. For
more information and to register, visit www.sprint.com/drivefirst.
Safely Social Monitor
Safely Social Monitor is a free service offered exclusively to Sprint
customers. With Safely, parents can monitor their child’s Facebook
activities, including viewing their friend list, see who they speak to
most frequently and the ages and gender of their friends. They also can
view newly posted photos of their child and receive alerts when certain
phrases are used or when they are tagged in photos. This will help
parents quickly intervene when necessary to keep their child safe.
Safely Social Monitor is part of the Safely family of services. For more
information and to register, visit www.safely.com.
Established in 2011, Safely is a division of Location Labs and provides
services that enhance the personal security of millions of families.
Nearly a dozen Tier 1 wireless carrier services are powered by Safely,
helping parents to keep tabs on loved ones through mobile alerts and
online activity reports.
Safely includes: Safely Locate, a mobile location service available via
AT&T FamilyMap, Sprint Family Locator and T-Mobile FamilyWhere; Safely
Drive, the only carrier-grade, patent-pending safe-driving service on
the market, available via Sprint DriveFirst and T-Mobile DriveSmart
Plus; Safely Phone Controls, the most advanced mobile phone remote
control and usage analytics service, available via Sprint Mobile
Controls; and Safely Social Monitor, an online service that helps
parents stay informed about kids’ social network activities.
Location Labs has raised $26 million in venture financing from Draper
Fisher Jurvetson, BlueRun Ventures (formerly Nokia Venture Partners),
QUALCOMM Ventures, Intel Capital, and Mitsui Ventures and was named to
Inc.’s 500/5000 list of America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies in
both 2010 and 2011. For more information: http://www.Safely.com and http://www.LocationLabs.com.
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline
communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers,
businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 53
million customers at the end of 3Q 2011 and is widely recognized for
developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including
the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United
States; offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid
brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance
Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities;
and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. The 2011 American Customer
Satisfaction Index showed Sprint is the #1 most improved company in
customer satisfaction, across all industries, over the last three years. Newsweek ranked Sprint No. 3 in its 2011 Green Rankings, listing it as one of
the nation’s greenest companies, the highest of any telecommunications
company. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.
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