BANGALORE: Airtel recently launched the Location Access Service (LAS) in Karnataka to facilitate its subscribers to locate a hospital or police station restaurant or other such services such as cinema halls, ATMs, pubs and bars, water bill payment centers, etc. in the area.

The LAS services are being provided jointly with Sarayu Telecom.

Airtel subscribers can send an SMS code such as POL for police station, HOS for hospital, AMB for ambulance, MED for a 24 hour chemist, CINE for cinema, etc., to 4242 for the nearest located facility at any time. Apart from this, the details, address, telephone numbers can also be acquired by both post and pre-paid customers of Airtel. The cost of this service - Rs 3 per SMS.

Another feature that Airtel is offering its subscriber base is a buddy search service where five or more Airtel subscribers can enter into a location access agreement and locate each other at any given time.

The LAS service will be limited to Airtel Pre and Postpaid subscribers located at 11 cities initially, viz Bangalore, Mangalore, Mysore, Manipal, Udupi, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Shimoga, Davangere and Bijapur. However, the company is also looking to add more cities and more services very soon.

Airtel covers 226 towns and cities in Karnataka and is planning to increase this number to 240 before year end, along with efforts to enable SMS in Kannada language too.