A FREE search service will be launched for cellphones next week - one that will enable users to do searches of shops, restaurants and petrol stations nearest to where they are.

Indoors or outdoors, they will be able to access maps of their current locations and make map searches via street names, postal codes or landmarks. The maps will even come marked with Electronic Road Pricing gantries, ATMs and train stations.

The service, to go live next Thursday, is from Rednano Mobile, the mobile platform of the local search and directory engine rednano.sg. Rednano, launched in March this year, is a joint venture between Singapore Press Holdings and Norwegian media group Schibsted ASA.

The service will eventually be available to customers holding phones on at least 90 per cent of phone operating platforms.

Customers of all three telcos will be able to tap the service at no data and telecommunication charges.

Even those who do not own phones with a Global Positioning System (GPS) will be able to use the service as the service streams data out via WiFi and the mobile cellular network. It does not rely only on satellite-based GPS.

Rednano's new service was announced one day after SingTel launched a people locator service for its subscribers.

SingTel's service displays up to three designated users' locations on an interactive map, mainly to help family members spot the whereabouts of their elderly relatives or young charges.

Rednano's director of mobile business development Shirley Tan explained that although other major mobile map providers such as Google, Nokia and SingTel also show users their current locations on maps, these are not integrated with a location-based directory search.

And while phones like the Apple iPhone come with an integrated directory and map service, this is accessible only to those with the phone, she added.

To use the service, mobile phone users first download and install the Rednano Locate application. To do a search, they key in a search term. Search results are displayed in order of the distance of the place from the user's location, with the nearest listed first with address, contact details and links to maps included.

For a start, phones running on the Symbian platform can access the service from next Thursday; by the middle of next year, phones operating on the Java, Windows Mobile and Blackberry RIM operating systems will get on board.

For more information, log on to www.rednano.sg/mobile.