Google Inc. announced on Wednesday a new feature of its mapping application for mobile phones that lets users find their location without the aid of satellite technology.

The technology, called "My Location," is part of the internet search company's version 2.0 of Google Maps, released in a beta edition on Wednesday.

Instead of tracking users through Global Positioning System technology — which tracks a person's position using satellites — the new Google service uses cellphone tower information to provide an approximate location.

The new service will allow mobile phone users to find their location even if they don't have GPS on their phone, and it will be useful in conjunction with GPS, the company said.

"The My Location technology also complements GPS-enabled devices, as it delivers a location estimate faster than GPS, provides coverage inside buildings" — where GPS signals can be unreliable — "and doesn't drain phone batteries as quickly as GPS," the company said in a statement.

The technology behind the service is not new. When cellular phones are searching for reception, they send "pings" or electronic signals that can be picked up by as many as six cellphone towers, and services already exist that can record those pings and use them to create a three-dimensional map of where the signals originated.

Earlier this month IntelliOne, a traffic information firm based in Atlanta and Toronto, announced it had reached an agreement with Rogers Wireless to use the company's data on the location of the cellphones in its network to create a real-time map of traffic congestion across Canada.

Google's entrance into the technology, however, is likely to have a broader impact because of the ubiquity of the company's Google Maps application and because the company has taken a more active interest in mobile applications.

Earlier this month, Google announced it was developing a free and open-source operating system for mobile phones called Android that anyone could create features for.

As with the IntelliOne service, Google said it does not gather any personally identifiable information as part of the feature. The company also said it can be disabled by anyone who prefers not to use it.

The company said the service is available on most smartphones, including all colour Blackberry devices.