With the 3G bubble burst in Europe and the accounting fiascoes from telecom
companies world over, the world telecom scenario looks to be in doldrums. In
most cases the reason has been over-expectation from the services and the
subscribers by the service providers. The young history of the wireless telecom
world is riddled with instances of overcapacity and premature harvesting.
India, however still presents a unique case. Operators are looking forward to
a profitable growth oriented future. Indian operators have been cautioned by the
brinkmanship and adventurism of their western counterparts. It is borne out by
cases such as Reliance announcing to lay 60,000 km of OFC but slowing down the
process to that of one of wait and watch. Till now it has put its money into
only 34,000 km of fiber.
The
need for Indian SPs presently is to prevent the decline of Average Revenue Per
User (ARPU) for voice services by offering basic data and value added data
services. Today’s business environment dictates that knowing the customer
better than the competition is the best competitive advantage a company can
have. Companies need to accelerate the time it takes to convert a new customer
into bottom line profit and then prevent that same customer from moving to
another service.
The Indian mobile networks are also moving towards 2.5G. BPL has GPRS enabled
its networks in 2000 and Bharti claims most of its mobile networks to be GPRS
ready. However, how many customers are willing to shift over to GPRS? The boon
and bane both seem to be data. It does not matter whether the operator is
implementing 2G, 2.5G or 3G networks. The point is, are there enough services
and applications in the Indian wireless operators basket to spur the usage of
these networks. Till now only SMS has been the chief contributor to data
revenues.
The services paradigm always gets redefined by adding a new dimension — how
to serve the customer better? Location based services (LBS) would offer the
first solution in India. The objective of LBS is to create both tangible and
intangible benefits for the service provider.
LBS enables the mobile service provider to find the geographical location of
the mobile device and provide services based on location information. This was
one service which did not come out of the hat of the innovative mobile service
providers looking for means to differentiate themselves through value added
services (VAS). It was rather caused by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) of US ruling, which required the network operators to provide emergency
services by locating the user of the mobile device within an accuracy range of
125 metres. This was to be implemented by the end of 2001. In the EU, it is
2008.
In the realm of "sticky" services; LBS would not only help SPs to
increase subscribers but reduce the churn rate also. In India LBS can benefit
both the consumers and network operators. While the consumers will have greater
personal safety, more personalised features and increased communication
convenience, the network operators will address discrete market segments based
on the different service portfolios.
The requirements would be for innovative location technologies seamlessly
merging with GSM, GPRS or WiLL-based mobile communication.
Applications
Main application categories for LBS include Emergency and Safety,
Communities and Entertainment, Information and Navigation, Tracking and
Monitoring, and M-Commerce.
Every information requested or pushed will be location relevant.
LBS will also revolutionise customer billing in the wireless industry as
carriers move from flat-rate billing to location-sensitive billing models. For
example busier areas such as city centres’, airports can have different
billing rates than the users home or office. This will be due to the effort the
network operator has to put in areas of congestion compared to low usage areas.
Instead of today’s cumbersome Yellow Pages and bulky telephone directories
we can look forward to Local Business Registries serving as a new, universal
clearinghouse for acquiring, organizing, managing and publishing extremely
accurate, location-based information, about real-world stores and products. They
would provide a one-stop, turnkey solution for businesses to ensure that rich
and timely information about their store locations is available to any
Web-enabled device and other information services.
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To enable advanced mapping and directions service, door-to-door directions
and interactive maps to their customers such an entity can partner with a
supplier of geographic mapping services. Such solution providers supply the
infrastructure needed to find addresses, determine points of interest along a
route or within a given proximity and calculate efficient routes for consumers
and transport companies.
Security would be of prime importance. Providers of mobile e-business
security can combine with companies into merchandising thus providing advanced
security for wireless location-based shopping solutions, allowing consumers
using wireless devices to securely access merchant information on products and
offers.
Location technologies:
The location technology can be both handset- and network-based solutions.
While network based asks for improved handset, the handset centric will need
more sophisticated mobile network infrastructure. Handset centric technology
solutions include those of GPS, Overlay Triangulation technologies and Cell of
Origin information.
GPS
Global Positioning System (GPS) is a network of satellites that continuously
transmit coded information, which makes it possible to precisely identify
locations on earth by measuring distance from the satellites. The satellites
transmit very low power radio signals allowing anyone with a GPS receiver to
determine their location on Earth. GPS can be combined with a mobile technology
say, GSM for a LBS that could keep track of any moving or stationary object and
display its location and other attributes on a map. The GPS over the moving
object will calculate the location, speed, date and time information. The
information will get stored on the GSM device and be sent to a control center
through the GSM and decoded. The transmitted information is sent to a mapping
engine that plots the route of the object on a digital street map of the city.
This map is then sent back to the handset for user reference.The accuracy that
can be achieved with GPS is within a few metres.
Cell of Origin
Cell of Origin is a mobile positioning technique for finding a caller’s
cell location. For COO positioning, the location of the base station is
ascertained and considered to be the location of the caller. COO is a variable
and not a very precise locator; depending on the number of base stations in the
search area, accuracy may be as close as within one hundred meters of the target
or as far off as thirty kilometers away. However it does not require any
modifications in the handset or the network, hence it is comparatively cheap to
deploy.
E-OTD
The Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) positioning method, generally
relies upon measuring the time at which signals from the Base Transceiver
Station (BTS) arrive at two geographically dispersed locations — the mobile
phone/station (MS) itself and a fixed measuring point known as the Location
Measurement Unit (LMU) whose location is known. The position of the MS is
determined by comparing the time differences between the two sets of timing
measurements. E-OTD schemes offer greater positioning accuracy than COO, between
50 and 125 meters, but have a slower speed of response and require software
modified handsets.
Time of Arrival
In a similar manner to E-OTD, the difference in time of arrival of a signal
from a mobile device to three BTSs is used to calculate the location.
Functionality is provided by synchronization of the cellular network, using GPS
or atomic clocks at each BTS (which increases costs). This capability is found
in cdmaOne networks, which are synchronized, whereas it is not provided in
asynchronous GSM networks. Problems associated with TOA schemes are that the
accuracy offered might be little better than that of cell of origin in urban
areas, but with a far longer speed of response. No handset modification is
required.
Angle Of Arrival
The most common version of this technique is a complex 4-12 antenna array at
each cell site location. These antenna arrays in principle work together to
determine the angle (relative to the cell site) from which a cellular signal
originated. When several cell sites can each determine their respective angles
of arrival, cellular telephone location can be estimated from the point of
intersection of projected lines drawn out from the cell site at the angle from
which the signal originated. Drawbacks to AOA systems is of adding antenna
arrays to cell sites and that the angular error of the antenna array can
translate into a significant error in lateral distance if the cellular telephone
is far from the cell sites.
Signal Attenuation
This operates on the principle of signal attenuation as the mobile phone
moves towards or away from a base station. Most mobile phone antennae are
omni-directional, so power is dissipated rapidly in all directions. If the
transmitted power of the mobile were known, and the power were measured at
another point, distance could be estimated using one of several propagation
models.
Intelligent Network Solutions
The architecture being adopted today by many network operators is based upon
mobile location center (MLC). The MLC separates the location technology to
locate the device from the application the location information will be put
into.
The wireless positioning technology are similar to satellite-based Global
Positioning Systems (GPS) but with the additional capability of determining
location inside buildings, parking garages and other shielded areas such as
inside a pocket or briefcase that are inaccessible to GPS systems.
Standardization
n In October 2000, the world’s
three largest mobile phone manufacturers–Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia -
founded the Location Interoperability Forum (LIF) to achieve the goal of
offering location-based services worldwide on wireless networks and
terminals.
n In December 2000, leading
members of the wireless location industry have formalized the creation of the
Wireless Location Industry Association (WLIA).
n The European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI) has ratified three location-fixing schemes: GPS, E-OTD
and TOA.
Players in the location value chain
n Location measurement
technology vendors: These are vendors specializing in location technology who
either license the technology to the SP or sell the positioning information to
the SP or network operator. The SP can also develop the location technology.
n Location server and gateway
vendor: Such vendors develop the softwares to run on standard IT platforms. This
can be marketed as an integrated solution.
n Location application
developers: Applications will be the differentiating factor creating either mass
market or niche market appeal for the SPs. Location application can be combined
with gateway because integration of the gateway software will be required with
the applications.
n Location infrastructure
vendors: If the industry decides to adopt network-based approaches to
positioning the infrastucture vendors will be responsible for implementing the
solution and implementing it with other network equipment. Such vendors will be
Lucent, Motorola.
n Content suppliers: They will be
the people providing personalized content for users as per their locations. They
will have links with various merchants and retail outlets in addition to
location directories and media houses.
Business models for LBS
The introductory nature of LBS market along with a combination of players
will call for a wide range of business models. There can be a combination of
one-time set-up fees, revenue sharing and monthly payments for additional
services such as technical support and upgrades, customer care, etc. On the
subscriber side, operators can experiment with various charging schemes,
including charging per additional time/traffic, charging for premium services
(e.g. per transaction) and a monthly subscription, to name a few.
User Acceptance
A key question is: will subscribers be willing to pay additional fees to
use these services?
In the western world, user acceptance surveys provide different answers,
most of them debatable. General usage figures based on past experience with
other services show that the answer lies in the usability and value services
bring to users.
The key trend in the US at the moment is E-OTD for GSM operators and GPS for
CDMA/TDMA operators. The choice between network and terminal based LDT might
have a big impact on operators LBS business affecting the required investment
and the future control of user data, and therefore the actual use of LBS. LBS
will give SPs the ability to push data to users based on their location and
preferences, in a seamless and inexpensive manner. This is one special
application that could allow Indian mobile operators to differentiate their
service offerings, increase data flow on network, increase network usage and
cash inflow.
Saurav Mitra Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management