New Wireless Services Help Cell Phone Users Find Where Friends Are Overseas Carriers Use Service Location technology should roll out in U.S. this year, with safety first, then fun.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: SARAH Z. SLEEPER

Swedes have a new way to locate friends -- by using a cell phone.

Telia Mobile, that country's largest wireless carrier, sells a messaging service that lets customers use specially enabled phones to track down pals who also have such phones. Called friendPosition, the service uses graphic and text messages that reveal the locations of users.

It might seem like a gimmick, except for one thing: It could be a way for wireless carriers to make money from location services they have to provide anyway.

U.S. providers have until 2005 to install systems that let authorities see the location of 911 callers who use a cell phone. That system is already in place for wireline phone callers who dial 911. Carriers are likely to build some for-fee services from this same technology, say analysts.

"Commercial location services will be available here by the end of the year," said Al Fross, a principal at Raritan, N.J.-based researcher Pelorus Group Inc. "Carriers overseas are doing quite well with (such services)."

Users of Telia's friendPosition pay per use, and it generates about $2 a month per user for the carrier, says David Hose, CEO of SignalSoft Corp., the firm that created friendPosition for Telia. That's big in an industry with thin profit margins.