The new service, Sprint Mobile Control, is free for a 30-day trial on Sprint's Android phones and $5 a month after that. The carrier plans to offer it on BlackBerry devices in the future, but hasn't yet announced plans to offer it on the iPhone.
Sprint claims that more than 75 percent of children between the ages of 12-17 have a smartphone, leading it to offer protective services.
The service gives parents a dashboard including voice and text messages, a list of recent calls and texts, and the ability to set phone limits, establish allowed phone numbers, and view a list of contacts with a photo. In addition, parents can see downloaded apps as well as set special alerts.
The new subscription may help Sprint work around mounting concerns by the federal government about children's online privacy, while reassuring parents of their children's safety as well.
The new service is similar to several apps on the market that protect cell phone use, in particular, "PhoneSheriff," developed by Retina-X Studio, which lets parents monitor kids' texts, calls, applications and websites by either logging into a webpage or accessing a hidden interface on the phone itself.
Parents can then restrict any app or website they deem unfit, set time limits for certain activities, as well as block calls and texts to and from certain numbers.
The Sprint program is only available on Sprint's phones, though, which could lead security-conscious parents to switch services while signing their younger children up for the smartphone plans they are increasingly demanding. On the other hand, the program's success may be limited since it is not available through iPhone, the carrier's best-selling device.
Still, the move by the carrier is a step in acknowledging the growing use of phones by younger children and offers one way to protect them from dangers that can be only a touch screen away.
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