Positioning Technology - Key to Increasing Mobile Location Revenues
(17/10/2002, BWCS Staff)
London: Mobile operators could greatly boost revenues from location services to current handsets by choosing the right positioning technology, argues a new White Paper from UK telecoms consultancy BWCS. Making the Most of Legacy Mobiles (available from BWCS.com) examines a wide range of technology choices facing mobile operators and identifies one clear winner.
As 3G network launches get pushed back, many mobile companies want to offer location services on current networks without waiting for upgraded terminals, argues Graham Wilde MD of BWCS, We found that there are gaping disparities in the revenue-generating potential of the different systems available.
From BWCS research, which involved extensive interviews with operators and location based application developers, one clear technology winner emerged. A US system called Uplink Time Difference of Arrival (U-TDOA) was found to offer greater accuracy and consistency of service than its rivals. In addition its ability to support all current mobile customers subscribers from the word go, repeatedly gave it a clear advantage over its rivals in BWCS revenue models.
Using information supplied by European and US mobile operators and BWCS own projections of service take-up, the report points out that a mobile operator installing U-TDOA now, could hope for an almost fourfold increase in future revenues from location services. We were surprised ourselves at the clarity of the findings confesses Wilde. This adds a solid dollar argument to those in favour of launching location services on legacy handsets.
However, BWCS warns, that while accuracy and consistency of service are key to driving the market for location based services forward, some mobile operators, relying on Cell-Identification for their positioning technology, are ignoring this. The wide variance of performance with Cell-ID (identifying the users whereabouts according to their proximity to a mobile base station) is a very serious issue, claimed Wilde In some areas the location identity will be very poor, which makes the services too patchy. The drop in service level will be unacceptable to most users. It is similar to a fixed line telecoms customer paying for a massive T1 leased line only to see the transmission speed drop to about 1% of capacity at unpredictable times. No-one would be prepared to gamble business-critical or safety critical applications on such a link.
Key findings of the BWCS report:
There is a substantial opportunity for operators to generate revenue from location based services using existing network and handset equipment.
The greater the accuracy of the positioning technology the greater potential there is for generating revenues.
Accuracy must be coupled with coupled with consistency of service if applications are to win customers.
Leading revenue generators will include child-tracking services, location-specific information services and workforce automation services.
The high-accuracy and ability to support all subscribers from the outset makes U-TDOA the technology most suited to delivering LBS revenues.
U-TDOA substantially outperformed other location technologies (including Cell-ID, Enhanced Cell-ID, E-OTD and A-GPS) as the system capable of delivering most revenues. Both E-OTD and A-GPS lagged U-TDOA partly because each will take time to build a substantial base of terminals.
Location revenues from E-OTD and A-GPS can be substantially improved by combining them with Cell-ID, although these dual technology solutions are still outperformed by U-TDOA as a standalone solution according to BWCS revenue models.
About BWCS
BWCS is a leading wireless telecommunications consultancy, based in the UK and operating worldwide. We work with wireless operators, equipment vendors, wireless software providers and major corporate users on wireless communications strategy.
For more information, please visit our website at www.BWCS.com To contact the authors, please e-mail Graham.Wilde@bwcs.com.
For further information, or to obtain a copy of the BWCS report please contact.
For further information on this report, please call BWCS on
+44 (0)1531 634326 or visit our website at BWCS.com
Back
|
|
