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Location services begin move toward center stage

by bryan morgan
November/December 2001

Location-based services can be defined as any sort of value-added wireless service whose key component is the user's current location. This location is integrated with a back-end geographical information system to produce an intelligent response, map or piece of information for consumption by the end-user. While many LBS components have existed independently for quite some time, very few mass-market solutions were available. Instead, the LBS marketplace has consisted primarily of custom vertical market applications (such as shipping, logistics and fleet tracking) in which the addition of location information can immediately impact an organization's bottom line. For application developers interested in making the leap into LBS, the good news is positioning capabilities are beginning to make the shift from proprietary/ expensive to widespread/inexpensive. This is due to a combination of factors including, but not limited to, pervasive mobile devices, the low cost of highly accurate GPS receivers, incorporation of location capabilities into popular software platforms and movement by wireless carriers due to the FCC's enhanced 911 mandate.

Many have taken a wait-and-see approach to LBS implementation, but the advantages positioning technologies have to offer make it hard to ignore much longer. A large number of enterprise and consumer applications could immediately take position into account, whether it is a customer address, a coffee shop location or a loyal customer driving near your store. Unfortunately, location services will be limited, for the near future, to custom applications residing on a mobile device equipped with a built-in GPS receiver. A common architecture for this sort of application deployment allows the client application to accept incoming latitude/longitude coordinates from the local GPS receiver.

Thin client solutions rely on virtually all application logic being processed on the server, with only a very small display layer residing on the client. In the case of location services for thin clients, such as standard Web or WAP apps, the wireless network itself is the most probable source of location data (using technologies such as TDOA to yield an approximate location based on signal strength and direction) due to the lack of any sort of positioning hardware on the client device. … And therein lies the problem. By October 2001, wireless carriers were required by the FCC to provide elementary LBS capabilities as part of the FCC's E911 mandate, yet for a variety of reasons, most of the largest carriers have been granted extensions. Once available, a new segment of the industry could rapidly expand as service providers partner with carriers to unleash a wide array of services on the general public.

What Are You Waiting For?

Whether you're a commercial software developer or a member of a corporate IT staff, if your mobile applications make use of any sort of user information, there's a very good chance that they could take a huge usability leap forward through the incorporation of positioning information. Location services can efficiently route service personnel to the next job, eliminate data entry errors (due to address information intake) and allow consumers to quickly find the nearest location of a desired product or service. Why wait? This is one wireless technology that is ready for prime time today.  

Bryan Morgan is a DevBiz contributor. Contact him at bryanmorgan@home.com.