Mobility

November 2, 2006
Where on Earth are you? LBS will know!

Runa Mukherjee

NEW DELHI -- Wireless service providers are facing both tremendous pressure and huge opportunity. Basic wireless service is becoming a commodity, as evidenced by a significant decline in average revenue per subscriber, accompanied by an increased demand for network capacity. In addition, churn rates are running around 30 percent, with subscribers jumping from plan to plan and provider to provider. To generate new revenues, and to keep wireless subscribers satisfied and loyal, service providers need to offer new and better services.

With the 3G bubble burst in the Europe and the chaos in the telecom companies all over the world, the world telecom scenario looks bleak. The reason has been over-expectation from the services and the subscribers by the service providers. India, still presents a genuine case. Indian operators can look forward to a profitable future as they have been cautioned by the over-hype and adventurism of their counterparts.

One of the most exciting new service areas is mobile location services (MLS). MLS are wireless service offerings that provide content to a person based on a combination of their personal profile and their current or planned location. For instance, MLS offer connections, via web-enabled wireless phones and handheld devices--to emergency services from any location; access to local information such as that of nearby stores, people, restaurants, and ATMs; even driving directions and traffic information. The objective of LBS is to create both tangible and intangible benefits for the service provider.

“Location-based tracking is a service, which is used to locate the subscriber location. This identified location could be used for providing various location-based services. These could vary from tracking the fleet of vehicles by transporters to doing promotions based on location of subscriber. It is also a very useful utility service for corporates who want to keep track of their people in the field,” said Saket Agarwal, COO, Cellebrum.

“Also, in case of roamers who have entered into a new circle and would want to know about the utilities vis-a-vis ATMs, hospitals, cineplexes, etc. or any other information, can send a SMS request. This then goes to the application server, which pushes the requested data based on the location of the subscriber,” said Agarwal.

Cellebrum, a M-Corp global group company, is Asia’s leading value-added mobile services and solution provider across platforms like SMS, IVRS, ASR, TTS, WAP, GPRS, etc. with expertise in the fields of signalling, call processing, protocols and specifications. It currently commands 20 percent of the VAS market in the country.

“Location-based services are expected to generate nearly US $8.5 billion for operators globally by 2010. Canvas LES (location enabling server), supports turnkey location-based services and helps deploy new services quickly and inexpensively. It provides complete personalised privacy management and access to valuable location-enabled content. Canvas LES helps network operators and service providers catch the next wave of data revenues,” said Nitin Patel, vice president, marketing, Telenity.

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 LBS worldwide on wireless networks and terminals. In December 2000, leading members of the wireless location industry formalised the creation of the Wireless Location Industry Association (WLIA). The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) ratified three location-fixing schemes: GPS, E-OTD and TOA.

LBS enables the mobile service provider to track the exact geographical location of the mobile device and provide services based on location information. This service came to being by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of US ruling, which asked the network operators to provide emergency services by locating the user of the mobile device within a range of 125m. This was to be implemented by the end of the year 2001.

One of the complicated services, LBS would not only help service providers to increase subscribers but lower the churn rate also. In India, LBS can benefit both the consumers and network operators. While the consumers will be having 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 requirement would be to seamlessly merge with GSM, GPRS or WLL-based mobile communication.

LBS applications

“Any amount of information can be achieved from the location once the user is registered. There are two types of information that can be acquired. One is promotional alerts that keep coming depending on the location while the second one is information that is sent based on the query sent by the user,” said Brij Mahendru, strategic business unit head, NPI Division, Bharti Telesoft.

For instance, if the user is lost, he can send a query asking where he is and where he wants to go. The service will inform him and direct him to the right location.

Main application for LBS would include emergency and safety services, communities and entertainment, information and navigation, tracking and monitoring, and m-commerce. Every information requested will be location relevant.

LBS will also enhance customer billing in the wireless industry as carriers now have moved to location-sensitive billing models. For instance, busier areas such as city centers, airports will have different billing rates and the users at home or office will have different rates. This will vary as the network operator has to put in varied efforts in the areas of congestion compared to low usage areas.

“Location based service provides filtered information based on the location of the user. Hence, this service spans across various sectors such as banking, hospitality among others, thereby, having diverse applications to its credit. Also, information pertaining to eateries, Cineplex’s etc, or any form of utilities can be promoted in terms of pull desired by the subscriber,” said Saket of Cellebrum.

Instead of Yellow Pages and telephone directories, Local Business Registries can serve as a new, universal clearinghouse for organising, managing and publishing extremely accurate, location-based information, about real-world stores and products. They would be a provider of one-stop, turnkey solutions for businesses to ensure availability of rich and timely information about their store locations and other information services.

Revenue sources

“First and foremost, it will be us who will provide the platform to the service provider like Airtel, etc. that will then tie up with other sectors and present it to the end user,” said Mahendru.

Payment can be made in three ways in such a technology, believe the experts. Firstly, by the end user, secondly, as a third party payment where revenue would be garnered through advertising and sponsorship and transactions.

Lastly, a no-payment model could be in use in which case the service provider will be providing the services free to end-users. This can be a smart mode as once the end user begins to understand its value, the service can be changed into a paid one and then the customer will be enticed to pay.

“The service charges depend upon operator to operator. The charging can be subscription-based and then per query in terms of request charge. Another charging model can be pack-based wherein certain amount of requests is inbuilt in the subscription and on exceeding the same charging is done,” said Agarwal.

Due to the sensitivity of the user location information, operators will not be willing to give it away. So operators will deploy and operate LBS within their own network and if they do find themselves lacking in LBS implementation, they will accept outsourced solutions, thus effectively hiding the actual user information from the third party. This application is more from the perspective of utility usage by the subscriber and would therefore act as a retention tool for the operators and would reduce churn. Since the initial investments for such a high accuracy technology is considerably high, most Indian operators will be using the Cell-ID technology, albeit in an enhanced form.

One can also use this application for various other services, like advanced mapping and directions service, door-to-door directions and interactive maps to customers (by partnering with a supplier of geographic mapping services). These solution providers will supply the infrastructure needed to find addresses, determine points of interest along a route or within a given proximity and evaluate efficient routes for consumers.One can even get security services. Providers of mobile e-business security can combine with merchandising companies thus providing advanced security for wireless location-based shopping solutions, allowing consumers using wireless devices to securely access information on products, offers and discounts.

Technology options for LBS

The location technology can be both handset- and network-based solutions. Handset centric technology solutions include GPS, Overlay Triangulation technologies and Cell of Origin information.

GPS: Global Positioning System 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. GSM for LBS that could keep track of any moving or still object and display its location and other attributes on a map. It will then 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 use.

Cell of Origin: Cell of Origin is a mobile positioning technique to find a caller’s cell location. For this, the location of the base station is traced and considered to be the location of the caller. COO is a variable and not very precise, depending on the number of base stations in the search area, accuracy may be as close or as far. Also, no modifications are needed, so its less expensive and can be deployed easily.

E-OTD: The Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) positioning method, relies upon measuring the time at which signals from the Base Transceiver Station (BTS) arrive at two geographically distinct locations – the mobile phone/station itself and a point that is fixed known as the Location Measurement Unit whose location is known. The position of the mobile station 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, a signal from a mobile device to three BTSs is used to calculate the location. Functionality is provided by coordination of the cellular network, using GPS or atomic clocks at each BTS. This capability is available in CDMA networks, but not in GSM networks.

Intelligent Network Solutions: The architecture being adopted today by many network operators is based on 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 GPS but with the additional capability of tracing location inside buildings, parking garages and other shielded areas such as inside a pocket that are inaccessible to GPS systems.

User Acceptance

An important question is: will subscribers be willing to pay additional fees to use these services? In the West, user acceptance surveys provide varied and debatable answers. 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. LBS will give service providers the ability to push data to users based on their location and preferences, in an 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.

“This service is pretty dependable and has been developed with a view to provide complete value added information such as pincode wise information, details about distance between locations, events happening in nearby places, nearest hospitals, ATMs, fuel stations et al. It also imbibes a sense of security, for example, for parents, this service acts as a Lakshman Rekha service or child tracker service, where the parents can define boundaries for their children and would get an alert when the same are crossed,” said Agarwal. In such a case, the user acceptance will be high as its not showcasing itself as a luxury but a need.

According to Nokia, the mobile phone should very soon become a window to the world. The phone giant is working on several applications, such as content aware wallpapers that change depending on where the user is or who they're with. Nokia has already produced an application that has sensors, which adds data to photos, such as where a picture was taken. The ‘Unique’ phone powered by Orange offers customers a phone that switches with ease between the fixed and mobile networks depending on the user's location.

Market opportunity

LBS has received a great deal of attention because of the opportunity it presents to service providers. However, like any new and lucrative market opportunity, it is being hyped. Everyday, new companies are announcing new initiatives. Many of these companies are start-ups without history or expertise in developing and delivering location-based solutions and technology. It's important that a service provider must have a partner with reputation, commitment to this market, and a proven track record.

LBS provides filtered information based on the location of the user. Hence, this service spans across various sectors such as banking, hospitality among others, thereby, having diverse applications to its credit. Also, information pertaining to eateries, Cineplex’s etc, or any form of utilities can be promoted in terms of pull desired by the subscriber.

MapInfo Corp. is one such company that has offered location-based solutions for everything starting from desktop, client/server, Internet, and even wireless. The company's technology has been deployed to solve emergency call response problems on both the carrier and public sector side. MapInfo created the first ever location-based billing solution for a wireless service provider in Europe. In addition, MapInfo's technology is used by over 200 wireless service providers and all of the top telecommunications infrastructure providers to help plan, design, build, market, sell, and maintain wireless networks and services.

In India, however, the state-owned BSNL doesn’t want to be left behind private operators where new services are concerned. It will be launching LBS in January 2007 and will be the first mobile operator to offer this service in India. BSNL will offer triple-play services and is also looking at audio and video streaming which promises to have a huge market in the country. No other operator has yet come up with such a new technology.

One instance of a LBS might be to allow the subscriber to find the nearest business of a certain type, such as a boutique with foreign labels. The boutique should also have the ability to make information available to people and that will be mentioned in the message too.

“We are planning to launch the LBS soon in the major cities and towns. The entire system is ready for offering the services and waiting for the right time to roll out LBS service,” said A.K. Sinha, CMD, BSNL.

According to BSNL, a subscriber would be able to access the important locations on mobiles through SMS, MMS and GPRS by LBS and the cost would be equivalent to that of an SMS. Telenity, the US-based provider of next-generation services for communications networks is deploying the solution for BSNL. The application is custom-fitted to the operator’s needs and can also customise according to regional languages and preferences of the operator.

However it is mandatory that the maps and specific locations of the cities are available before rolling out this application. According to industry experts, there are maps for 250 cities and BSNL can surely offer their LBS in those cities.

“As long as the user does not become totally dependent on this service, it will be a hit in India. By the first quarter of 2007, we will be seeing this application becoming very popular here,” said Mahendru.

Limitations: Very Few

According to Saket Agarwal, there would be linkages that need to be created in terms of mapping of database of a particular city in question and since this information is very dynamic in nature, frequent updations of the same would be required.”

Mahendru of Bharti Telesoft believes that we still don't have enough capable handsets that will be compatible with this application. “Many handsets are not Java enabled, some wont be compatible with map displays and graphic information. Though these are a few limitations, with the the new mobile devices hitting the market so often with newer and better technology, by next year, we will have a successful story out of LBS.”

The Future: Perfect

With experts believing in this technology and the application boasting of being simple yet accurate, one can smartly say LBS. With BSNL taking the lead and many operators readying for a first quarter release, it will soon come in the league of the best value added services available in the market. The Indian service providers need to prevent the decline of ARPU for voice services by offering basic data and value-added services. Operators need to increase the pace of converting a new customer into bottom line profit and then retain him with newer and better services. LBS will be one of those star services to look forward to.