Comment Re:What's the deal with GPS on cell phones? (Score 1) 133
The "GPS/Location thing" on your phone _is_ intended to provide these types of Location-Based Services (LBs) both for e911 purposes and for consumer network services.
The issue here is rollout timing. Currently, most mobile carriers are scrambling to meet their FCC e911 obligations. Eventually the carriers will definately roll out LBS to consumers, once e911 is satisfied and they have a billing model to profit from the service.
The consumer mobile phone location services that you want are similar to the e911 services mandated by the FCC but there are some fundaemental differences which I'll attempt to describe:
There are two phases of e911 (http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/); some of this data is summarized by mobileIN on one page here: http://www.mobilein.com/wireless_emergency_service s.htm
Phase I: (required by April 1 1998)
provide emergency service responders at the local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) with the callback cell phone number and the location of the connecting tower a mobile emergency call.
Phase II: (commence Oct 1 2001 - complete by Dec 31 2005)
requires wireless carriers to provide far more precise location information of an incoming mobile emergency call, within 50 meters 67% of the time, within 150-300 meters 95% of the time.
The Phase II e911 requirements give some leeway to the wireless carrier as to how this location service is provided: handset-based, tower/network-based, or a hybrid of the two.
As of Oct 1 2001, all new handsets sold in the US had to require e911 Phase II capabilities to assist with e911 location services. This is the service your phone has and that's what the symbol implies. Some phone manufacturers may have even made this information reasonable easy for a consumer to access (I think another thread refers to an admin code for an LG phone).
Apparently by Dec 31 2005, all active handsets must supply e911 compliant services or will be denied wireless carrier service.
Regardless, the e911 Phase II services are the priority for the wireless carriers and lays the foundation for further mobile LBS applications.
Note that the e911 requirement is that location information be provided to the the PSAP - a fairly simple requirement given that the carriers have full control of how they provide this information.
Mobile applications will require a sophisticated, robust API to access this location data, which must be maintained by the carrier - in most cases the carriers just havn't done it yet.
Prior to the buyout by Cingular, AT&T had apparently rolled out Location services for beta-testing in Seattle WA (as early as 2002) and it is likely that Cingular is benefiting from the AT&T expertise.
Now that phones are being made with fast cpus and gobs of memory, it's quite possible to do the GPS math in the handset if you have access to the connection information in sufficient detail.
Nokia Series 60 phones and above make this information available via the handset API and I know of at least one Nokia app that can track which tower you are attached to. Once you know the tower, it is a simple question of
"is this tower's location in your database?"
If so, the software knows the handset is within x radius of the that tower - ie you know where you are well enough to coarsely locate the phone.
I believe what this Intel whitepaper proposes is the similar recipe on a broader scale.
1. Setup an good receiver/antenna
2. Receive all radio signals across all frequencies well enough to parse the unique tower code, Radio station ID, or MAC address in the case of Wifi access points.
3. Use the vast location database of all known radio signal transmitter beacons to locate all sources of the signals received
4. Use this combined information to perform a triangulation with a massive number of known points and cancel out beacon location errors; even without timing data, triangulation with this many points would quickly narrow the location probability to a very small area.
5. Re-sample as the mobile devices moves to get further information providing a much higher probability and a direction vector.
The issue here is rollout timing. Currently, most mobile carriers are scrambling to meet their FCC e911 obligations. Eventually the carriers will definately roll out LBS to consumers, once e911 is satisfied and they have a billing model to profit from the service.
The consumer mobile phone location services that you want are similar to the e911 services mandated by the FCC but there are some fundaemental differences which I'll attempt to describe:
There are two phases of e911 (http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/); some of this data is summarized by mobileIN on one page here: http://www.mobilein.com/wireless_emergency_servic
Phase I: (required by April 1 1998)
provide emergency service responders at the local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) with the callback cell phone number and the location of the connecting tower a mobile emergency call.
Phase II: (commence Oct 1 2001 - complete by Dec 31 2005)
requires wireless carriers to provide far more precise location information of an incoming mobile emergency call, within 50 meters 67% of the time, within 150-300 meters 95% of the time.
The Phase II e911 requirements give some leeway to the wireless carrier as to how this location service is provided: handset-based, tower/network-based, or a hybrid of the two.
As of Oct 1 2001, all new handsets sold in the US had to require e911 Phase II capabilities to assist with e911 location services. This is the service your phone has and that's what the symbol implies. Some phone manufacturers may have even made this information reasonable easy for a consumer to access (I think another thread refers to an admin code for an LG phone).
Apparently by Dec 31 2005, all active handsets must supply e911 compliant services or will be denied wireless carrier service.
Regardless, the e911 Phase II services are the priority for the wireless carriers and lays the foundation for further mobile LBS applications.
Note that the e911 requirement is that location information be provided to the the PSAP - a fairly simple requirement given that the carriers have full control of how they provide this information.
Mobile applications will require a sophisticated, robust API to access this location data, which must be maintained by the carrier - in most cases the carriers just havn't done it yet.
Prior to the buyout by Cingular, AT&T had apparently rolled out Location services for beta-testing in Seattle WA (as early as 2002) and it is likely that Cingular is benefiting from the AT&T expertise.
Now that phones are being made with fast cpus and gobs of memory, it's quite possible to do the GPS math in the handset if you have access to the connection information in sufficient detail.
Nokia Series 60 phones and above make this information available via the handset API and I know of at least one Nokia app that can track which tower you are attached to. Once you know the tower, it is a simple question of
"is this tower's location in your database?"
If so, the software knows the handset is within x radius of the that tower - ie you know where you are well enough to coarsely locate the phone.
I believe what this Intel whitepaper proposes is the similar recipe on a broader scale.
1. Setup an good receiver/antenna
2. Receive all radio signals across all frequencies well enough to parse the unique tower code, Radio station ID, or MAC address in the case of Wifi access points.
3. Use the vast location database of all known radio signal transmitter beacons to locate all sources of the signals received
4. Use this combined information to perform a triangulation with a massive number of known points and cancel out beacon location errors; even without timing data, triangulation with this many points would quickly narrow the location probability to a very small area.
5. Re-sample as the mobile devices moves to get further information providing a much higher probability and a direction vector.
