Socialight's volunteered views to psfk for their work in enabling UK cross-carrier Cell-ID Location cooperation needed for Mobile Social Networking, highlights the first rule non-exclusive need for LBS wares to traverse networks. Case in point—traffic transparency that we see today in the US and globally for SMS and MMS, but lacking for Location traffic.
For those unfamiliar with this UK Location history, carriers gathered together, identified a cooperative need for wholesale, and decided to collectively expose their data at different prices. What followed was an explosive build of start-ups launching what each marketed as cross-carrier LBS 'partnerships' and wholesale pricing claims towards innovation. Due credit however in reality belongs to Parliament and advocates, rather than to app providers still piggy-backing on the accomplishment.
The below is a sample output of the initial effort, which today now seems like a bloated set of pricing for a commodity - one which US carriers still resist to offer up collectively.
| O2 | Vodafone | |||
| Monthly Volume | Transaction Price | Monthly Volume | Transaction Price | |
| 0 - 100K | £0.075 | 0 - 100K | £0.088 | |
| 100K - 250K | £0.065 | 100K - 250K | £0.075 | |
| 250K - 500K | £0.055 | 250K - 500K | £0.069 | |
| 500K - 1M | £0.045 | 500K - 1M | £0.063 | |
| T-Mobile | Orange | |||
| Monthly Volume | Transaction Price | Monthly Volume | Transaction Price | |
| 0 - 100K | £0.095 | 0 - 100K | £0.062 | |
| 100K - 250K | £0.085 | 100K - 250K | £0.060 | |
| 250K - 500K | £0.075 | 250K - 500K | £0.058 | |
| 500K - 1M | £0.065 | 500K - 1M | £0.055 |