Smarter phone networks coming — WiChorus will know your location

September 13, 2007 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

wichorus.jpgWiChorus, a San Jose, Calif. maker of a device giving telecom providers better control of personal data on coming high-powered WiMax networks, has received $15 million in a second round of financing .

The company has been secretive until now, and hasn’t launched yet, but its plans are notable: Its hardware, called an “access services network gateway,” lets a telecom provider track a user’s location, among other things. This way, publishers or other services transporting data over the network can serve more relevant ads to the person, according to VentureWire (subscription required). It also allows the telecom provider to control traffic and manage its services more efficiently.

WiMax networks boost the performance of wireless broadband — WiMax’s range is is as much as 10 miles, compared to WiFi’s reach of a few hundred feet. Sprint and Clearwire are building WiMax networks for use as early as next year.

New investor Mayfield Fund led the round, which included existing investors Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners. The company has now raised $25 million.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • What about customer privacy? And just because someone knows "where" I am, doesn't mean that they know "who" I am or what my preferences are.

    How does this help the website owner who wants to deliver contextual/relevant data to their customer base?

    In essence it means that the telco's know more about me and re-sell this information to the advertisers.

    Corporations are not going to like this. They don't want advertisers knowing this kind of information about their employees.
  • John Dipling
    And another proof that VCs don't do their check list prior to the investment. Many companies including Cisco, Juniper and other DPI players have already introduced a generic solution for any broadband access network. There is nothing new in this idea.