Vodafone Taps FAST for Mobile Search

Vodafone has chosen Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) to provide a search platform for Vodaphone live!, its consumer service offering.

Terms were not disclosed.

Vodafone live! delivers news, information, e-mail, chat, location-based services, games and shopping to customers’ mobile devices.

The service is already live in Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, and is scheduled for rollout in the United Kingdom (where Vodafone is based) in early 2004.

“The Mobile search deployment by Vodafone is just another example of how FAST’s enterprise platform technology can be adapted for supporting mobile standards such as WMl and WAP on the device and presentation side,” FAST spokesman Peter Gorman told internetnews.com.

Although the Vodafone deployment may be for a different use than some of our other clients, FAST takes the same approach to each of its projects. Average deployment time is four to 10 weeks depending upon the complexity, Gorman said.

The deal involves FAST’s Data Search suite of tools, which boast real-time search technology, business search management tools and information analysis capabilities.

It’s not FAST’s first deal in the telecommunications space. It also has contracts with AT&T and SBC Communications .