GPS World

Tag: Wireless LBS Insider

  • Freemium Model for in-Vehicle LBS

    Cloud-based infotainment, more tightly integrated apps, and more personalized offerings will change the in-vehicle mobile experience. Interfaces will morph towards combinations of heads-up displays and voice. These were some of the conclusions from my December 1 webinar “Car as a Mobile LBS Device,” with panelists from Ford, OnStar, Pioneer and TomTom.  How in-vehicle apps will be monetized is an open question. When polled, almost half of the webinar audience believed a “freemium” model will prevail. Freemium models work by offering a product or service free of charge while charging a premium for advanced features.

    Close to a third of the webinar participants believed that LBS apps will come as “standard equipment” on new vehicles. Many see mobile advertising as adding a significant revenue stream if the advertising is truly contextual and continues to serve up offerings that are useful to a consumer. Obtaining contextual marketing data about consumers must be done with prudence, but more about that later. The carriers and service providers such as Facebook and Google stand to make the most money from in-vehicle apps.

    Carrier Low IQ. Mobile contextual advertising needs consumer behavior data to work. The behavior data are highly sought because of their value to advertisers. If you haven’t been paying attention, Carrier IQ allegedly has been illegally and secretly recording individual cell-phone user behavior, including location data, across more than 140 million handsets. Carrier IQ maintains that its services count and measure operational information and do not record keystrokes or provide tracking tools.

    Who raised their hands? AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile admitted to using Carrier IQ. Apple said it stopped using Carrier IQ in the latest version of its operating system, iOS 5. Across the board, the companies insist that they only used information to track operational and network performance issues. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart has released a report detailing how Carrier IQ’s software could be used by carriers and device makers to track user activity, actual keystrokes and location data. Now comes renewed scrutiny of the industry by Congress, federal agencies and consumers.

    Checked-out? Facebook consumed Gowalla in an acquisition of the location-enabled mobile social network. Gowalla’s users check in at specific places to share their location with friends. Unable to compete with Foursquare, the Gowalla service will be shuttered by Facebook; however, employees will be kept on, presumably to work on the new Facebook Timeline chronological interface. JWire, a media company, reported results of a survey that sheds light on the category. Consumers are split on their feelings towards location-enabled mobile social networks. A little over a third of respondents indicated positive feelings toward it. Just as many had a poor opinion of it, with the rest ambivalent. Males are more likely to use the service and the most popular check-in categories are restaurants, hotels, bars and health clubs.

    Let There Be Light? Resolution of the LightSquared GPS interference issue eludes. The LTE provider has moved quickly to make added concessions following new reports of GPS interference based on LightSquared’s already previously revised deployment plans. LightSquared’s newest concessions include limiting or delaying transmission power increase. This comes on the heels of reports from a key government committee that LightSquared’s network affects a “majority” of general-purpose GPS receivers and technology used to land planes, but doesn’t appear to have a significant impact on cell phones. “LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to the majority of other tested general-purpose GPS receivers,” said Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) in a statement last week. The federal advisory committee examined tests of LightSquared’s revised deployment plan, which moved transmissions into airwaves located farther away from GPS bands. LightSquared had asserted this would solve the majority of issues with GPS interference, but that isn’t supported by early tests. The final analysis of the tests by the PNT committee is still underway.

  • 2011 Showed Better LBS Market Gains, But Was It All About Google?

    2011 was a decent year for the location-based services industry. It was an even better year if your company was lucky enough to get bought out by an ebay, Google or Intel. While acquisitions stood out as the key LBS news in 2011, privacy stood out as an ugly issue that threatened consumer acceptance. In addition, automobile manufacturers are viewing social media as a new profitable technology for vehicles and were trying to convince consumers that the connected vehicle is the way of the future.

     

    This year featured a slew of location-based company acquisitions and consolidation — far more than in 2010. The acquisitions of such established location companies as Where and Telmap by eBay and Intel, respectively, at least show that bigger companies want that capability in their online offerings.

    Google made many moves into the location business in the last two years — and really went crazy in 2011 with acquisitions. Google is trying to grab a large share of the European traffic market by offering real-time services in 13 European companies. Google shook up the navigation market with free navigation service for Android phones in 2009.

    To top off a big year for Google, the company is taking its mapping technology indoors with the launch of Google Maps 6.0. Indoor mapping and positioning received big headway in 2011, and it was reasonable to assume that the 800-pound LBS gorilla, Google, would be a big player to entice big retail companies to come on board for location technology to allow customers to find products.

    According to published reports, some of the big-box retail stores such as IKEA, Macy’s, Home Depot and Bloomingdales have been mapped. However, a lot of the bigger malls, and Target and Wal-Mart, have not been mapped.

    The cool thing about the product is that it also tells customers what floor they are on in a building. The uncool thing about the product is that Google Maps 6.0 is only available for Android.

    Google’s indoor mapping partners include 18 U.S. airports, which will open up more partners and LBS relationships in the future.

    A look at all of Google’s location market moves, and analysis, in 2011:

    • Google’s major partners, who have more than 25,000 Google Maps application uses per day, will be charged starting next year. Some say it won’t hurt small companies much—and may even help companies who compete with Google. Either way, some say the decision was inevitable for companies making a profit–and using Google’s resources for free.
    • The recent $12.5-billion Google acquisition of Motorola Mobility has some industry experts saying that the location market piece of pie is getting smaller every time the search giant makes a deal. Many industry experts have said that the main makers of Google Android smart phones should feel challenged as well as the company has seemingly gone into business against them. Google is once more trying to corner more of the social shopping market by buying The Dealmap, a 15-month-old company that offers its own location-based daily deal service.
    • Google purchased Menlo Park, Calif.-based The Dealmap, a company that collects data from hundreds of sources and arranges deals by location, on its website and a smartphone application. The start-up, founded last year, has 15 employees and 2 million users, according to published reports. Google tried to buy Groupon for as much as $6 billion last year, and decided to launch its own service, Google Offers, in Portland. Google’s service has since expanded to New York and the San Francisco Bay Area.

    More transition is happening in the LBS market this year — even at our deadline. As GPS World reported, LBS company Gowalla looks like it is shutting down by the end of January 2012, according to the company’s blog. Company president Josh Williams said he and his staff are now going to work for Facebook.

    While some LBS analysts said this year that GPS technology, and its offshoot niche navigation capability, are just embedded widgets in the overall location market, others say they still are the driver to consumer awareness and acceptance.

    “In my opinion, one of the biggest trends in 2011 included market acceptance — and demand — of GPS technologies. We are now seeing end-users demand GPS technologies in the workplace,” said Jonathan Hubbard, SpeedGuage CEO and co-founder. “In fact, truck drivers now say if you don’t have GPS-enabled automated logging of my work hours, or what we in the transportation sector call hours of service monitoring, then I won’t work for you. That’s a significant change in how GPS-enabled technologies were formerly viewed — more or less — for solely tracking purposes, and we see this trend only continuing and gaining momentum in the coming year.”

    Other Markets and Issues Made Big Splash In 2011                                                                 

    In vehicle technology also made headlines in 2011 when automakers said they would be increasing social media and other capabilities for new car models. Because of larger screens going into many vehicles, LBS seems like a natural advertising fit, but Thilo Koslowski, Gartner vice president, said that car companies will developing market strategies along traditional display-type marketing models.

    Koslowsi said the biggest competition the auto industry has is the smartphone or other consumer mobile device. “We will see growth in vehicle application on the Android platform, while Apple will be leveling off. [Research in Motion] will have a lower share,” he said.

    The other big “issue” confronting the LBS industry is privacy, which became big news in May when it was revealed that location data was secretly stored in all iOS 4 devices. It was learned that Apple was storing a file with location data in every iPhone or iPad with iOS 4.    These discoveries prompted Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who was concerned that as many as 15 percent of users are children, to ask now-deceased Apple boss Steve Jobs about the operating system. In a letter to Jobs, Franken, who presided over hearings on location technology and privacy, asked why Apple consumers were not informed of the collection and retention of their location data, how frequently is a user’s location recorded, why is this information not encrypted, with whom has the information been shared, and what is the purpose of collecting the location data.

    Apple contended that iOS devices are not logging the location of the user, but caching a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower locations around a user’s position. Some of these cell towers may be many miles away from the user.

    In other LBS Insider news:

    • Veteran telematics vendor Cross Country Automotive Services and its subsidiary, ATX Group, which is a provider to BMW, Hyundai, Infiniti, Lexus, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Toyota, announced their new corporate brand name, Agero. Cross Country, which purchased ATX in 2008, says Agero will create products for auto manufacturers, insurance carriers and aftermarket providers.
    • GPS World Magazine is GPS-Wireless 2012’s official media partner. GPS-Wireless 2012 will be March 21-22 at the Hyatt Regency—San Francisco Airport.
    • LBS Insider will be covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month. Please send me your news tips and releases.

  • Google to Charge High-Volume Users for Map Use

    It couldn’t stay free forever. Google’s recent decision to charge high-volume users may force some of the larger companies to look elsewhere for alternatives. In the meantime, attendees at two San Francisco Bay Area conferences learned that push location marketing is not the cool thing to be into, privacy still is a big deal that thwarts consumer acceptance…and that the word “experience” is being used too much.

     

    SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s major partners, who have more than 25,000 Google Maps application uses per day, will be charged starting next year — a decision that was a hot topic at the Geo Loco conference here. Some say it won’t hurt small companies much — and may even help companies who compete with Google. Either way, some say the decision was inevitable for companies making a profit — and using Google’s resources for free.

    “It’s really not going to affect a lot of people — just those at the over 25,000 uses a day threshold,” said J. Kim Fennell, deCarta CEO, on a Geo Loco panel. Fennell said he sees a lot of commoditization of the LBS space, from maps to navigation. “The big thing, now that maps are commoditized, is better local search capabilities for the consumer,” he said.

    One panel member, Gary Gale, director of Places Registry for Nokia, disagreed, saying that while Google keeps on giving its location products and capability away for free, it may force companies to look elsewhere when it decides to charge them. “People don’t like change. Some people will look for alternatives,” he said.

    According to published reports, high-volume websites will be offered Google Maps Premium, a paid service that costs $10,000 per year. Planned fees will be $4 per 1,000 page loads over the 25,000 per day threshold.

    Google’s Bernardo Hernandez, head of global emerging platforms, told Geo Loco attendees that the company, which recently purchased restaurant guide publisher Zagat, says there are millions of Google Maps users worldwide each day. He said that heading use trends is the continued growth in mobile applications. “Phones are pocket guides,” he said in a reference to the Zagat purchase.

    Facebook Debunks Push Location Marketing

    If one looks beyond a young high-tech company speaker constantly saying the word “experience” (as in consumer experience or user experience), sometimes something important is said. Facebook’s Paul Adams, global brand experience manager, said that companies should not use push location marketing to consumers. Rather, they should have their friends and family tell them what products and services they should use.

    Adams said that Facebook is the platform to do that — basically saying that the average Facebook user has 130-170 friends that equate into about 8,000 friends of friends, exploding into even larger numbers for friends of friends of friends (whew!).

    In other Geo Loco news, location-based deals seem to be lackluster in revenue growth. Groupon Now’s location-based capability is only 1 percent of its revenue. “The motivation for merchants and consumers to participate [in Groupon Now’s program] is just not there. People just aren’t using it,” said David Hagreaves at the Geo Loco conference. Hargreaves, a consultant, said that the big ticket items that Groupon seems to be excelling at — restaurants, spa/beauty — are just not seeing the numbers for LBS.

    Indoor Positioning Big Topic at Two Conferences

    Indoor positioning capability, boosted by Wi-Fi and other technology, seemed to be the hot market topic at both CSR Locations and Beyond Summit 2011 and Geo Loco conferences. CSR rolled out its SiRFstar V and SiRFusion location platform at their conference.

    The products fit in the company’s strategy of offering and enabling mainstream consumer location indoors or outdoors, said Kanwar Chadha, CSR’s chief marketing officer.

    Years ago, it took a long time to get an outdoor position fix, much less a seamless handoff of a signal indoors. However, Wi-Fi technology, combined with satellite positioning, pedestrian dead reckoning (using MEMs sensors), and crowd-sourced location and aided data from a cloud-based server, has made accurate indoor positioning possible, CSR contends.

    Such companies as Micello attended both the CSR and Geo Loco conferences to hawk products that use indoor positioning. Micello is working to offer developers access to thousands of indoor maps to enable applications for airports, trade shows, shopping malls and other complex indoor venues.

    In other Locations and Beyond Summit news, privacy was a hot topic, though it is being labeled as a service provider problem, not a developer’s. “The industry has a lot more work to do in regards to privacy. The younger generation understands the implicit use of location — and privacy has been built into the infrastructure,” Chadha said. “We have no control of those elements. That responsibility belongs to the service provider.”

    A CSR moderator, Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, said that the younger generation “scares the heck out of me” in terms of their willingness to embrace location services without care of privacy issues. “But having said that, you can’t beat the value of LBS when you need it,” he said.

    In other conference news:

    • David Chiu, who spoke at Geo Loco and is running for San Francisco mayor, said there is big opportunity for companies who want to work with the city. He said buses don’t arrive on time — nor does the city know where they are most of the time.
    • James Urquhart, who spoke at the CSR conference and is cloud computing and virtualization marketing manager for Cisco, said that the industry has a rare and huge opportunity to reduce costs that directly affect profit and loss in the M2M space.
    • Duncan McCall, who spoke at CSR and is CEO of PlaceIQ, said that while location-based advertising has been promised for some time, there still are not enough location impressions. He says data is not yet aggregated together in a useful way.
    • While folks have been quick to point out that LBA is in its early stages, Alistair Goodman, Placecast CEO, at CSR, said that his company is seeing advertisers spend six- and seven-figures on campaigns in this space.
    • Kanwar Chadha, CSR CMO, said he does not like the term LBS, but prefers “location experience.”

  • Indoor Location Apps Lead to Compelling User Experience

    Indoor location technology is evolving; indoor mapping is coming along and apps that seamlessly work in and out of doors will make a compelling experience more compelling. Bringing mobile location to indoors will stimulate our industry. The killer app? Apps that can self learn to be personalized to a user’s life, lived in and out of doors (check traffic before I leave my desk). Hop on board.

    Indoor Mapping. The indoor market is getting more interesting as Google’s Street View Mapping edges indoors. In a new pilot project, Google is providing glimpses through the front doors of retail businesses. Restaurants, hotels, stores, and other venues will show a 360-degree inside perspective. The imagery will appear on Google’s Places pages, all using the same Street View technology that enables its other map images. The company’s plans are to eventually allow users to virtually enter indoor spaces from street maps. It is a way for businesses to entice new customers. Companies in the pilot volunteer for inclusion. The project links nicely to indoor mapping plans under way.

    Finding Location Indoors. Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) introduced a new mobile phone processor to improve the accuracy of indoor navigation. It is a “self learning” indoor location platform that fuses real-time Wi-Fi, satellite positioning data, MEMS sensors, and crowd-sourced location data. The company claims it can achieve continuous and rapid indoor position fixes. The system’s distinction, says CSR’s Dave Huntingford, is it doesn’t require manual surveys to build and maintain its Wi-Fi and cellular location data base. The CSR system debuts next year.

    Leading Vehicle Integration. “The automakers that can provide the most elegant integration of vehicle and mobile apps will lead the next revolution of providing social media and other capabilities in cars,” states a report from market analysts IHS iSuppli. Integration is critical as automotive infotainment will derive functionality from smart mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Globally, Toyota and Ford lead in successful integration of car infotainment systems with mobile devices, IHS iSuppli reports. A study of production-ready applications showed that the Toyota Entune and Ford Sync AppLink apps had the highest performance on at least four criteria, including content variety, level of integration, daily relevance, and implementation.

    Being Watched? The well-publicized case in front of the Supreme Court may define the power of police forces to put location devices on vehicles for surveillance. The court’s decision may extend beyond vehicles into the far more prevalent police practice of tracking cell phones. According to the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles police tracked 295 phones, up 35 percent from the previous year. The paper reports that a magistrate in Texas who approves cell-tracking requests has used public records to estimate that U.S. federal courts issue 20,000 to 30,000 cell-phone tracking orders annually. In 2010, in comparison, state, local and federal courts approved a little over 3,000 wiretaps.

    Location Data too Accurate? Precise location info spawns lawsuit. Customers concerned about HTC’s location tracking practices have hit the company with a lawsuit. HTC is charged with using the AccuWeather app to track customer’s precise locations and providing it to advertisers who use it for location targeted ads. It boils down to location precision. The suit claims that HTC collects “unnecessarily precise” location data. Weather is a regional phenomenon based on coarse location and can be easily determined by cell towers, and not the GPS data HTC obtains. The AccuWeather app is integrated into some HTC phones and cannot be uninstalled, according to the suit. HTC can be added to the honor roll of company blunders that fuel concerns about the misuse of location data.

    New Innovators. Localmind was one of the winners at recent competitions for young location-oriented companies. This real-time, location-based clever Q&A platform leverages social check-in services. Users can ask questions of others. For instance, someone might query about waits at a restaurant, liveliness at a bar, or the state of the Wi-Fi at a coffee shop. Another winner, Tagwhat, offers a multimedia location guide that reveals videos, photos, narratives, and audio about the world around people wherever they go, based on the users’ pre-selected, customized interests such as food, music, movies, heritage, and sports. Containment in a personalized bubble may or may not be a good thing. A third winner, Right Back on Track (RBT), enables schools to reduce truancy and drop outs. The system lets schools and families know the whereabouts of truant students to enable interventions to attract the students back in school.

  • More than Navigation: Who Cares Where Starbucks Is?

    The location industry is evolving. In the near future we won’t be discussing navigation and mapping as a way of finding the nearest Starbucks. Contextual location driven advertising will start delivering solid revenues, as soon as the market becomes better organized. The value of location information will be magnified as it shifts to the cloud. Vehicle manufacturers will be creating their own rich contextual location information. Near field communication, NFC, with its seat between consumers and cash registers, will provide some of the most valuable location data. These are points all made at last week’s LocNav conference by The Where Business.

    Tipping Point. Half of Americans are not using smartphones. Location becomes more interesting when everyone has a smartphone and it reaches a tipping point. Social proximity and location has big benefits. “When everyone has a smartphone, you can connect via wireless mesh,” says Michael Metcalf of Yahoo. “If I’m in a line at JFK for a cab, I can let others know my destination and I can reduce the line and wait by half.” Geo-fencing has been stymied by the battery drain caused by frequent GPS pinging. Wireless mesh technology solves this issue. Another winner in location is near field communications, which works in short range proximity to enable purchases and other activities via smartphones. It creates a valuable database that includes precise location tracking data.

    Power to the Automotive OEMs. Unlike the rest of the industry, automotive OEMS won’t need to rely on location integrators or cellular providers to provide them with a driver’s location. With integrated GPS and communications, they are well equipped to understand the context of where drivers are located, what they may be doing, and where they may go next. “In the past, the automotive industry didn’t get a share of the advertising revenue generated in the vehicle by radio, which was usually even installed as OEM equipment. “That will change,” says Lou Brugman of Pioneer Automotive. “In-vehicle infotainment will be adding location-based social networking, which might include automatically sharing your location or estimated time of arrival with specific contacts. The excuse for being stuck in traffic might not work as easily when you’ve actually been lingering over lunch.

    Contextual Advertising Road Block. Everyone is talking about contextual location-based advertising, but it is being held back by a complicated eco-system. “There is little conformity. There are open standards and closed standards,” says Chris Peralta of Nokia. “Contextual advertising offerings are operating as separate silos.” Peralta feels that MirrorLink, previously called Terminal Mode, is getting traction. The MirrorLink Consortium is dedicated to cross-industry collaboration in developing global standards and solutions for smartphone and in-vehicle connectivity.

    Heard in the Hallways:

    “Sensors that use location will change more people’s lives than giving turn-by-turn directions faster. In the future location conferences will have nothing to do with navigation and mapping.”

    “Apple required us to add a navigation application for the iPad. We hadn’t even considered that the iPad would be used in a vehicle for navigation.”

    “People will accept dirtier data that is cheaper. Mapping that is from a user-generated community will be good enough. There will be some mapping that will sell for a premium for some uses, but map data will be commoditized.”

    “In the future, all mobile advertising will be opt-in. It won’t continue an upward trajectory if it doesn’t do otherwise.”

    Intelligence in the Cloud. The shift of information to the cloud will have a significant impact to our industry. “The cloud moves localization to a global context,” says Kanwar Chadha of CSR. “In the cloud, it becomes intelligent context and simplifies information that can feed sensors that work on low energy.” It is important to provide the right level of location accuracy for different contexts. For privacy concerns, social networking users don’t want location that is too precise; yet for mobile promotions, the closer the better. Weather can be regional for most common uses although agriculture requires precision. Having the location intelligence in the cloud enables more sensor usage.

    Smartphones and Shopping. It sounds redundant, but Google’s research indicates a heavy reliance on smartphones while shopping in brick and mortar stores. A whopping 70 percent of smartphoners use their phones as a shopping aid while inside of a store. Almost 25 percent report researching purchases on a phone, visiting a store to view merchandise, but then buying online. The benefits of mobile advertising are significant. “Hyperlocal advertising has an ROI of about 800 percent,” said Surojit Chatterjee, of Google, “Mobile ad campaigns are seeing 40 percent more calls compared to desktop.”

    I will host a free GPS World webinar on Thursday, December 1, with interesting guests.  Details will be provided in November’s Wireless Pulse.

  • FCC’s Future Location Requirements, Apple iPhone 4S

    Update:

    Many press reports recently said that the Federal Communications Commission plans to require GPS in all mobiles by 2018, including LBS Insider (October 12, 2011). However, the FCC said that isn’t quite so, saying that “not before 2019, on a date still to be determined, carriers will have to meet the more stringent location accuracy standards that now apply to those carriers using a handset solution for [enhanced 911], and they may choose which solution to use.”

    FCC spokeswoman Lauren Kravetz said that these technology solutions may be GPS chipsets, network-based, or a hybrid. The FCC said, after the conclusion of an eight-year period that ends in early 2019, it will sunset the existing network-based rule and require all wireless carriers to meet “the more stringent location accuracy standards in the handset-based rule. The FCC will then set a specific sunset date for a network-based standard — after further notice and comments.”

    An announcement completely overshadowed by the Apple iPhone 4S rollout may have a major impact on the location-based services industry. The FCC has said that all wireless carriers, including voice-over-IP service and landline providers, are required to integrate GPS into phones by 2018. In other news, Intel bought Telmap, which has made inroads into the LBS market with its partnerships with carriers.

    In a move designed to allow first responders to locate 911 emergency calls, the Federal Communications Commission will require all wireless operators, including voice-over-IP service and landline providers, to integrate GPS in phones by 2018.

    The FCC says the majority of mobile phone users will have GPS-installed devices by the 2018 deadline. The FCC did not set a deadline for phones that do not use GPS-based technology. In addition, VoIP is going toward more mobile applications, rather than its original substitute for landline service.

    Most industry experts agree that the rise of location-based services occurred when the FCC mandated that carriers have location capability during its enhanced 911 rulemaking. Wireless carriers chafed at the deadlines and accuracy requirements. However, the rulemaking did bring market awareness to the carriers to the benefits, and potential new markets, coming from this mandated location requirement.

    While it is too early to tell how much this will help drive LBS markets, the FCC said the decision, which was overshadowed as it was announced the same week as the rollout of the Apple iPhone 4S, was spurred by the desire to modernize 911. This means locating emergency callers quickly, particularly from smartphones and other mobile devices.

    But have the wireless carriers lost their grip on LBS? In 2009, the surge in the number of GPS-enabled smartphones, proliferation of handset and mobile OS application stores, and increased availability and consumer demand for free or low-priced LBS applications has had a huge impact on the traditionally carrier-controlled LBS market, said Dan Gilmartin, Where vice president of marketing.

    “The decreased costs and barriers to entry into the market place and ability to reach consumers through low- or no-cost viral social marketing channels is enabling small application developers to compete with the established LBS developers. The result is a highly competitive landscape that beforehand was dominated by only a few major players,” he said.

    Gilmartin said that Google’s decision to offer free turn-by-turn navigation and acquisition of ADMob for $750 million reinforced the expectation that the viable business models for LBS in 2010 and beyond will include offering free or “freemium” services to consumers through ad-supported and other non-traditional funding models. “That said, the carriers’ subscription model still appears viable, at least for the short term, and consumers are proving to be willing to pay for what they perceive to be high-quality applications both on- and off-deck, navigation being the most prominent category,” he said.

    Go Ask Apple? 

    The rollout of the Apple iPhone 4S may not be the biggest thing for the LBS market, but it does open it further to another tier-one carrier in Sprint. Like other iPhone models, the 4S has GPS embedded, but offers Siri voice-recognition that integrates with its navigation capability.

    When LBS Insider contacted Sprint for comments on the new iPhone 4S and the FCC decision that GPS be installed in all smartphones, we got the public relations brush off to “Go ask Apple.” Ask Apple about GPS and LBS? This is an interesting response, as Sprint was one of the first major LBS market players, particularly their Nextel folks who were very innovative with location technology in the early days.

    Intel Buys Telmap

    At least one company in the LBS market is doing something right when a big company like Intel buys it. As GPS World reported, Intel bought Telmap, the Israel-based LBS company. The deal was announced at the recent Intel AppUp Elements developer conference in Seattle.

    Motti Kushnir, Telmap chief marketing officer, said that since Telmap is a private company, financial details cannot be disclosed. He said the deal will take effect by the end of the year. “Telmap will be a wholly owned subsidiary and will maintain its independence as well as its brand,” Kushnir said in a prepared statement.

    Kushnir said no layoffs are expected, nor will facilities close or be moved by Intel. “On the contrary, we are expected to grow in order to support the growth of our business both in existing and new territories,” he said.

    One of the reasons Intel bought the company is that it is sees mobility as one of its growth engines — and location is a key component, Kushnir said.

    Telmap says it has 6 million users for its IP portfolio that includes mapping, local search, and navigation. This includes a new restaurant LBS initiative in Israel. The company is working with Rest, a large Israel restaurant guide to provide location-based coupons to customers.

    In other LBS industry news:

    • Fierce Wireless made an admittedly subjective list of the worst cell phones of all time. Garmin’s ill-fated Nuvifone G60 made the list. The phone, a partnership between Garmin and Asustek Computer, featured LBS — and had a $5.95 monthly charge for premium service. Fierce Wireless says that it was a failure in part because of Google’s free location services.
    • Nokia will be closing down its operations in Bonn, Germany, and Malvern, Pennsylvania, with an expected loss of more than 1,300 jobs in the Location and Commerce divisions. According to published reports, operations will consolidate in the Berlin, Boston, and Chicago offices. Another 2,200 layoffs will come from its European manufacturing operations.
    • This column has admittedly neglected traffic markets lately, but will be running more stories and interviews soon. With that, some big news has come out of that market, namely Google’s recent deal with INRIX to power its navigation and mapping applications. INRIX traffic information will be integrated in Google’s online products and services and on mobile phones.

    Meanwhile, INRIX competitor TomTom is launching a Traffic Foundation that brings together stakeholders from academia, industry, and policy-making to help reduce traffic congestions. The company also rolled out its Custom Probe Counts at the ITS World Congress, that allows government and business markets to assess traffic density. The company also expanded its coverage from 14 to 18 countries.

  • In-Car Connectivity, Not a Smartphone on Wheels

    The 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show is underway. The Ford Evos concept car is having its debut and overtakes the company’s Sync offering, with a high level of social networking and connectivity features. A departure from the Sync approach of vehicles as smartphones on wheels, this plug-in hybrid is designed to always be connected to the cloud. Some of the distractibility found in the Sync has been diminished. The driver’s “personal cloud” makes automatic adjustments to music, temperature, traffic checks, and navigation that reflect learned personal choices of the driver and her schedule. Hooking a car up to the cloud comes with significant risks. Moving from stand-alone isolated in-vehicle systems to the connected network world carries the threat of being hacked and exposed to viruses. iSec researchers demonstrated unlocking and starting a car by sending text messages to its alarm system. The problem, however, is much broader than having a car stolen.

    White Flag. The industry has surrendered mobile check-in to Foursquare. It isn’t often one gets to report on a Facebook failure, but after one year of disappointing traction, the company has abandoned Places. A location-based social network offering, Facebook Places allowed users to share location at venues, and see who among their contacts were checked in nearby. When Places launched a year ago, it wasn’t clear if start-ups like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl could compete with Facebook. Yet the day following the Facebook Places launch, Foursquare sign-ups swelled with a record number of new users. Dennis Crowley of Foursquare asserts that they have captured 10 million users by “being about what people are currently doing,” while Facebook records what people have done in the past. Facebook users won’t be able to check in, but can add location to a tag.

    No More Gowalla Badges. Unable to compete with Foursquare on check-ins alone, Gowalla is shedding some of its check-in bells and whistles and adding social travel guides for travelers. These location-based communities emphasize image sharing and storytelling and are now available in 60 cities worldwide. Gowalla is also featuring content from National Geographic and other travel-oriented sites.

    Looking for Metrics. Local, location-based search is a key driver for mobile advertising. Google has 200 million active mobile map users in more than 100 countries. Navigation is search’s bosom buddy. “In general, I think you can look at navigation as a type of conversion, for example, after searching for directions,” says Suroijit Chatterjee of Goggle, as reported by The Where Business. “Better attribution models are needed, however, in order for revenue generation to develop further.”

    Fourth Amendment and Location: Law and Order Edition. In November, the Supreme Court will hear the most important fourth amendment case in years, and it is all about location. The question is whether the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect’s vehicle and track movements. The court case arose from an investigation of a Washington man who was suspected of being part of a cocaine selling operation. The police had obtained a search warrant, but installed the tracking device one day late.

    Literary Location Judges. Recent rulings from judges across the country that have included tracking of cell phone locations have sided with protection of privacy. It is common for judges to invoke George Orwell’s 1984 and its depiction of a futuristic police state that keeps citizens under constant surveillance. In November, the Supreme Court Judges will address the specific question of whether the placement of a tracking device on a vehicle qualifies as a search, and if the surveillance by location technology is different from conventional methods such as tailing suspects and stake-outs, which do not require a warrant.

    Navv Revamps. Navv has recreated itself in the navigation industry by adding social networking into its personal navigation offering. Users can share their locations, itineraries, or current routes to their Facebook wall, directly from the app. Check-ins via Foursquare are automated. In March, the Navv navigation app was removed from the Apple App Store in a now-resolved argument with Apple over rights to the navigation app’s name.

    Mark your Calendar. Don’t miss LocNav 2011, October 18-19 in San Jose. The Where Business has co-located its annual Location Business Summit and Navigation conferences to create an even bigger show. I’ll be moderating the panel, “Connecting People Places and Things: Advertising and Social Networking in the Location Ecosystem.” My guests include executives form Expedia, Nokia, Yahoo, and A&G. See you there.

    The October issue of Wireless Pulse will be published one week later than usual to allow reporting on the LocNav show.

  • Is Google’s Acquisition of Motorola Mobility an Attempt to Control Location Biz?

    Google is at it again. This time Motorola Mobility is on the buying block. What does this mean to the location-based services market? Another potential location platform market closed off? Some industry experts believe this is the case. In addition, Iridium and TeleNav are making LBS news with recent product launches and acquisitions.

     

    The recent $12.5-billion Google acquisition of Motorola Mobility has some industry experts saying that the location market piece of pie is getting smaller every time the search giant makes a deal.

    “I think with Google controlling both the hardware and software stack of the Android ecosystem it will be hard for any technology company to work with Motorola. They want to own the whole shooting match for themselves,” said Ted Morgan, Skyhook Wireless CEO.

    Boston-based Skyhook is suing Google for allegedly using tactics to block Motorola Mobility and Samsung from contracts that use the company Wi-Fi-based tracking system in Android smartphones.

    Many industry experts have said that the main makers of Google Android smartphones should feel challenged as well as the company has seemingly gone into business against them.

    Google has made many moves into the location business in the last two years. It is trying to grab a large share of the European traffic market by offering real-time services in 13 European companies. Google shook up the navigation market with free navigation service for Android phones in 2009. Last month, LBS Insider detailed Google’s purchase of The Dealmap, which offers a location-based daily deal service.

    Google’s acquisition of Motorola is another step in a development strategy that appears to be aimed at increasing the company’s ability to compete across multiple markets that are served by mobile computing, said Mike Dobson, Telemapics president, author of Exploring Local. “[This is] supplemented by the company’s ability to supply its customers proprietary content that can provide a unique and informed world view whether those customers are at home or on the road exploring new geographies,” he said.

    Dobson says that Google clearly wants to compete on a level playing field with Apple and appears to feel that the only way they can do so is to acquire one of the premier manufacturers of mobile phones. “While Google had hoped to control the mobile market by developing Android, doing so has not allowed them the gather the strategic control of phone design, pricing, positioning, placement, or distribution,” he said. “Conversely, Apple has been able to bring mobile phones to the marketplace whose features, functionality, and looks have generated a design revolution that has enchanted consumers in a manner dissimilar to anything we have ever seen in the mobile marketplace.”

    Although Motorola’s brand has been tarnished in recent years, it is clearly the case that they are an extraordinarily talented developer of popular mobile devices that continue to stretch to boundaries of the capabilities of the cell phone world, said Dobson, who believes that this is evidenced by the fervor of anticipation surround the current release of the dual-core, 4G LTE compatible Motorola Droid Bionic.

    Motorola’s design team, however, does not appear to understand the consumer mobile phone market with the same ability to interleave design and hardware functionality that is the hallmark of all Apple products, including the iPhone. “Nor do I believe that Google has the capabilities, as of this time, at least, to remedy this situation,” he said.

    Dobson said that Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola, coupled with those like its acquisition of Zagat’s and proposed acquisition of ITA Software, an airline ticketing company, seems to indicate that Google is interested not only in providing the platform and OS, but also the common content that might be of interest to users of their mobile devices. “When Google’s control of key content is wrapped within the control of the delivery platform and nested within the Internet’s most successful advertising delivery platform, AdSense/AdWord, it would appear that Google will have advantages in the mobile world far superior to any company that currently exists,” he said.

    Now that the U.S. government has blocked AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile, all eyes are on Google’s newest purchase. Dobson has said that while it is impossible to estimate the size and data usage total that can be attributed to location services, there is little reason to assume that it does not mirror the growing trend in data growth.

    At the time the AT&T/T-Mobile deal was announced, Dobson told LBS Insider that if AT&T can advantage itself by easing its spectrum crunch through the acquisition, it could result in the company being more interested in navigation and LBS than in the past.

    Iridium Making LBS Foray

    As GPS World reported, McLean, Va.-based Iridium Communications announced that its Iridium Force strategy will include LBS and M2M to grow its personal mobile satellite capabilities beyond satellite phones. The new capability enables communication with Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The Iridium Extreme, which is the company’s smallest, will be connected to online portals with GPS and LBS capabilities.

    The company also says that Iridum Tracking Portals allow customers to access location monitoring that show real-time status and location, scheduling regular check-ins, geo-fencing, and other features.

    In a July interview with LBS Insider, Patrick Shay, Iridium vice president and general manager for data services, said that the machine-to-machine market constitutes the company’s fastest growing segment. The company said it reached 500,000 total billable subscribers for its satellite voice and data services worldwide. The breakdown of subscribers includes 90 percent commercial customers and 10 percent U.S. government customers.

    TeleNav Buys LBS Firm Goby

    In a smaller acquisition, of which financial details were not disclosed, TeleNav purchased Boston-based Goby, a local and travel search startup that focuses on mobile applications — and will look at advertising revenue models.

    TeleNav has been tight-lipped about the acquisition, only saying that they are impressed with the small company and its personnel and technology. Published reports indicate that the company, and 10 employees, are staying in Boston.

  • Microsoft Missteps Add to Privacy Jitters

    Microsoft is contributing to the latest location privacy jitters. Missteps by Microsoft, Apple, and Google have the potential to dampen uptake of location solutions. Microsoft published the estimated locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other devices with Wi-Fi connections. The location database was assembled by Microsoft’s access to Windows phones and by vehicles that drive streets and record Wi-Fi signals accessible from public roads. The data were published on Microsoft’s Live.com website.

    The problem is that Wi-Fi devices can be individually identified by a unique code, often called a MAC address. It’s not just Wi-Fi routers that can be identified. Phones and computers can be used as Wi-Fi access points, via tethering and other means, and their location can be monitored. Using the Microsoft data on Live.com, CNET tracked an HTC mobile device’s movements between house addresses in the city of Columbus, Ohio.

    Skyhook conducts similar Wi-Fi mapping, but according to Ted Morgan of Skyhook, does not provides direct access to its database. “All our partners use our client location engine, which does the scanning and lookups to our system,” says Morgan. “We don’t gather any MAC addresses of client devices, only access points and devices that act as access points.” Google collects similar location information and curbed access to the data a few months ago after a CNET article appeared. Microsoft just announced it too would now restrict access. When will these guys learn?

    Googleola Marriage. The announcement of Google’s intention to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, a heavy bucket of cash, will have repercussions throughout the industry. Google will become a mobile manufacturer in head-to-head competition with Apple and Research in Motion. For Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry, this may be a kiss of death, unless they are snapped up by someone like Microsoft, who may feel pressured to join the game. Google will have bought itself entry into the ferocious patent lawsuit war between Motorola Mobility and Microsoft at a time when relations between Microsoft and Google had improved.

    Google’s Larry Page made assurances on the company’s blog that Android would remain an open system. “This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences”. Say that as he may, other Android handset manufacturers will now be competing with the supplier of their operating software in a distribution channel tangle.

    Connected Car. The connected car, a vehicle with embedded modules and wireless services that link to the cloud and the car’s operating system, continues to evolve. The carriers are aggressively staking out territories. Verizon has shown off a car equipped with a 4G LTE modem with OnStar prototype apps. Sprint Nextel has worked with Aeris Communications to bring the Sprint network and cellular connectivity to the Hyundai connected vehicle program. AT&T has partnered with Panasonic Automotive.

    Ford has led the car manufacturers with its SYNC offering that provides hands-free, voice controlled in-car connectively. Already in 3 million vehicles, SYNC will become available on Ford’s entire passenger line-up for $295, down from its current $395.

    More than half of surveyed U.S. consumers find the concept of a connected vehicle appealing, according to a survey by Alcatel-Lucent. When it comes to opening wallets, the top applications are augmented GPS; maintenance, tracking, and notification; Wi-Fi; advanced voice features; and online environmental analysis.

    It’s not all about Smartphones. The global mobile app market for feature phones will almost double by 2016, reports Ovum. The success of smartphone apps will drive feature phone apps to a predicted $1 billion market. Feature phones outsell smart phones, but have lagged in applications uptake. The upswing should be helped by the increasing ease of developing apps and publishing them for this market.

    Personalization, not just Location. Feature phone mobile advertisements that are tailored to a consumer’s “tastes and interests” are four times more effective than offers based on location, time, or lifestyle, according to a poll of 2,000 U.S. consumers, commissioned by mobile marketing company, Upstream. The marketing activity that was found to most likely lead to a follow-up action included mobile coupons; opt-in text alert or message; an e-mail received on a mobile phone; an ad on a mobile website; or an ad that appears during an Internet search of a product or service.

    Mark your Calendar.  Don’t miss LocNav 2011 October 18-19 in San Jose. The Where Business has co-located its annual Location Business Summit and Navigation conferences to create an even bigger show. I’ll be moderating the panel, “Connecting People Places and Things: Advertising and Social Networking in the Location Ecosystem.”

  • Consumer Time on Mobile Apps Surpasses Time on Web

    The world is spinning in a new direction. Consumers are spending more time on mobile apps than on the web. In June, mobile app use overtook both mobile and desktop web, as measured by apps analytic firm Flurry. Consumers spent an average of 81 minutes per day on mobile apps, and 74 minutes on the web. App use was measured on Apple’s iOS, Android, Blackberry, and J2ME platforms, and web use was measured on the open web, mobile web, and Facebook.

    Last year, the numbers told a different story. In 2010 iOS was popular, but Android was yet to skyrocket onto the market. Web time led with 64 daily usage minutes; mobile app time lagged at 43 minutes. What are consumers doing with their apps in 2011? Having fun, or more likely, wasting time. Games and social networking categories captured the significant majority of app usage. Consumers spent nearly half their time playing games, and a third were connecting with social networking apps. Together, these two categories account for 79 percent of consumers’ total mobile app time.

    Mapping Apple. Last month I wrote that rumors of Apple’s imminent release of its own mapping database was proven wrong by its renewal of Google maps. This doesn’t mean Google isn’t hard at work on it. MacRumors reports that there are legal disclaimers found in iOS 5 in a new section called “Map Data.” A diverse list of licenses appear from third parties that provide mapping data and services. Included are CoreLogic, Getchee, Increment P Corp, Localeze, MapData Sciences, DMTI, TomTom, Urban Mapping, and Waze. Urban Mapping provides in-depth neighborhood data and Waze offers crowd-sourced real-time map and traffic data.

    Foursquare is set to start making money. Foursquare made its name as a location-based check-in community that awards mayoralships and other rewards for visiting stores and restaurants. Users share recommendations for venues. If you wondered how the company was going to bring in revenue, here’s the dope. Foursquare will team with LivingSocial and Gilt Groupe to offer location-targeted daily coupon offers, its biggest move yet to harness its consumer buzz into a long-term revenue model.

    Foursquare will leverage its location-tracking capabilities and customer data to offer deals. The depth of Foursquare’s consumer database is extensive and should give the company insight into individual perspectives and behaviors, and provide an edge in targeting offers that will grab a high conversion rate.

    LightSquared causes GPS interference. “LightSquared should not be permitted to use the L-Band spectrum for a densely-deployed, non-integrated terrestrial-only network. Such a network would cause unacceptable interference to GPS operations, wiping out an installed base of over 500 million units used in a wide array of public safety, aviation, industrial and consumer applications.” So reads the technical working group’s final report to the FCC. The group concluded that no mitigation techniques, such as using filters on GPS receivers, were considered because they don’t exist and therefore cannot be tested. The FCC is currently holding a comment period and eventually the commission will make a decision about LightSquared band use.

    Continuing to press its case, LightSquared presented the FCC with a plan to mitigate interference with GPS by using Inmarsat’s lower spectrum band, enabling reduced power of base stations by more than 50 percent. However, the working group indicated testing of this lower channel does not eliminate harmful interference to GPS receivers.

    LightSquared has argued that the issue is with GPS receivers, not their proposed system: “Despite the commercial GPS device industry’s best record to rewrite the record and obfuscate the nature of the problem, the simple fact remains that GPS receivers do not adequately reject base-station transmissions in the adjacent band.” Jim Kirkland of Trimble and the Coalition to Save our GPS responded that GPS receivers were designed against satellite transmissions with an ancillary terrestrial component, consistent with LightSquared’s initial design, but not later changes.

    Despite mounting concern of GPS interference, LightSquared recently snared $265 million in financing for its LTE network. This year LightSquared raised a total of $2.3 billion and appears close to a Sprint deal. Does LightSquared have a viable “Plan B”?

    Action-based ads. A bit more than a third of mobile ad campaigns ask subscribers to click to call, click to map, click to download, or click to SMS, reports mobile advertiser, Jumptap. The remaining ads usually invite users to a website, and aren’t as immediately actionable. Mobile ad engagement peaks at mid-day, and click through rates are at the lowest during morning commute and initial workday hours.

    Moment of Zen. When asked about the stealth in which FourSquare just raised $50 million, CEO Dennis Crowley opined, “Loose Tweets sink companies.”

  • Strategy Overhauls, Strong M2M, Privacy — and What More’s in Store

    It’s July, which means big news is slow to come by — and it is the opportunity to examine what will drive the location-based services market for the rest of 2011…and beyond. So far, consolidation is continuing, with Nokia combining digital mapping giant Navteq into a single LBS unit. In addition, strong entries into the machine-to-machine market include Iridium, while AT&T seeks to increase market share. Privacy issues were a big topic in the first part of the 2011, but will they hamper market growth the rest of the year?

     

    Nokia to Consolidate Navteq into Location-Based Services Unit

    In a move that looks like a strategy overhaul, Nokia plans to combine its Chicago-based Navteq digital mapping unit with its location-based services business. The new location and commerce division will be led by Michael Halbherr, who told LBS Insider in April that he was involved in Nokia’s $8.1 billion decision to acquire Navteq in 2007.

    Nokia had touted that it had a “hands-off” approach with Navteq, unlike competitor TomTom, which incorporated its Tele Atlas mapping unit so much that the TA brand is no longer visible.

    Halbherr told LBS Insider he predicted the demise of the portable navigation system early on, a market that competitor TomTom has been finding difficult recently. Navteq maps power Nokia’s Ovi Maps service for smartphones. Yahoo and Microsoft also incorporate Navteq digital mapping into their offerings.

     

    Privacy Legislation Looks For Consumer Consent

    New legislation aims to preclude such companies as Apple and Google from using customer’s location data without their consent. Senators Al Franken, D-Minn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., co-sponsored the bill, called the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011.

    Franken honchoed a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law hearing that grilled Google and Apple executives in May. The uproar about consumer privacy arose in April at a California LBS application developers’ conference when companies indicated that customer’s privacy data was collected and shared.

    How this legislation, if passed, will affect the industry is not known. But it has raised eyebrows in several market sectors. Thilo Koslowski, Gartner vice president, told attendees at an automotive telematics conference last month that privacy is a big concern to auto makers who want to incorporate LBS-type of connectivity into their new vehicles. Koslowski went further when he said that not only do consumers not want social media in their vehicles, the privacy factor is not going away — and the industry needs to take notice of that.

    Iridium Forging Into M2M Markets

    Saying the machine-to-machine market constitutes its fastest growing segment, McLean, Va.-based Iridium Communications has partnered with several industry companies to grow beyond its government markets.

    “M2M in 2010 exploded for us in 2010, a real tipping point. In short, we reduced the size of the 9602 [short burst data] module to the size of matchbook, so the much lower price point allowed us to win a bunch of new programs,” said Patrick Shay, Iridium vice president and general manager for data services.

    Shay, an industry veteran who worked at Motorola, Rand McNally and Hughes Telematics, said that Iridium plans constellation enhancements in 2015. “It’s a one-for-one [satellite] replacement with backward compatibility and no service disruption,” he said.

    Such big M2M names as Kore Telematics, Digi International, and SkyBitz have become Iridium partners. Kore integrates satellite connectivity into its Prismpro unit.

    One Iridium partner, DeLorme, said it is rolling out a personal communicator this fall with two-way satellite messaging, SOS capabilities, remote tracking and Android smartphone interface so messages can be posted to Twitter or Facebook. The unit will go for $249.95 and have subscription fees starting at $9.95 a month.

    Editor’s Note: The August issue of GPS World will carry an article about Iridium certifying Cubic Global Tracking Solutions’ Global Sentinel System.

     

    AT&T Location Information Services Focusing on Enterprise Market

    AT&T Location Information Services is greatly expanding its location marketing, particularly in M2M, with its partners Loc-Aid Technologies and TechnoCom Corp. The company announced the partnerships at its developer summit in January.

    The company is focusing on the enterprise market because consumer location-based services have been a tough go for AT&T. The enterprise/M2M market has been a good one for AT&T and its network-based location systems, said John Booth, AT&T LIS senior product manager.

    The interoperability with the other carriers helps to grow the market, Booth said. “Historically, a customer had to work with one carrier and that limited them,” he said.

    Booth says there are benefits in using a network-based location solution because it prevents users from needing to download applications or use a specific platform in order to be located. The services are both device and network agnostic, he said.

    Loc-Aid is working with AT&T on its Location-as-a Service offering where businesses can access a customer’s location based on requirements or events. TechnoCom and AT&T are creating location and messaging products for the enterprise market.

    AT&T is working with Road America, a roadside assistance service provider, for a network-based application for location capability in the event of an accident or break down. The service, called LocateMe, is a cross-carrier offering that links to Road America’s 24-hour response centers.

    AT&T is working on integrating other location technology into its network service offerings, Booth said. “We are working on a number of applications besides assisted GPS [and cell ID] to include Wi-Fi and RFID. We want something that works in whatever the environment — airports or railroads,” he said.

    In addition to call center and transportation logistics, which is AT&T’s strong areas, emerging markets include fraud prevention and even truancy monitoring. “School districts get millions of dollars in funding based on student attendance. It’s a natural location market,” Booth said.

    In addition to the truancy monitoring market, regular parolees and bail bond holders constitute a huge potential market. AT&T estimates there are 5 million parolees nationwide and 7 million bail bond holders.

     

    Carriers Still Focal Point for LBS Implementation

    For years there have been arguments about who is driving the mobile information market for LBS: Is it the carriers? Auto manufacturers? New media companies such as Google? Despite all of the talk, companies still are trying to align themselves to offer the carriers’ capabilities to implement LBS.

    The recent Alcatel-Lucent partnership with Polaris Wireless and Thales Alenia Space is an example of companies tailoring E911 type of location capability and marketing for carriers. The three companies have partnered to pursue business with Tier 1 wireless operators in the United States and other regions, said Bhavin Shah, Polaris Wireless vice president of marketing and business development.

    “Alcatel-Lucent and Thales Alenia Space have a working relationship based on the former’s prior part-ownership of the latter. Alcatel-Lucent and Polaris Wireless have pursued a closer relationship based on shared interests in promoting their respective location solutions to wireless operators,” he said. “Recent developments and announcement of the partnership were triggered by impending Tier 1 LTE decisions,
    and the fact that the partnership enables a quicker time to market than ALU building a location solution on its own, and Polaris Wireless and Thales Alenia Space approaching Tier 1 operators directly without a larger infrastructure partner.”

    Alcatel-Lucent is the platform provider and direct interface with the customer (network operator). ALU provides all hardware, middleware, and conducts sales, support, operations, and billing. Polaris Wireless provides network-based location technology and network interfaces, including Polaris Wireless Location Signatures (Polaris WLSTM) and other location technology, such as Enhanced Cell-ID. Thales Alenia Space, with its expertise in satellite positioning, provides handset-based (GPS) location technology.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • LightSquared Prospects; FCC Chair Wants Interference Cleared, Hits Back at GPS

    LightSquared Prospects Dimming. Concerns by government and the private sector about GPS interference from LightSquared’s proposed wholesale LTE service accelerates. Government experts just reported that interference with GPS occurred in high portions of LightSquared’s spectrum bands and little in the lower spectrum. The National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board’s tests showed that some GPS receivers lost signal strength while others were fully disabled by LightSquared’s signal. FCC Chairman Genachowski, under fire for granting LightSquared a conditional waiver, has reiterated that he will not permit LightSquared to begin commercial service without first resolving concerns about potential interference to GPS devices.

    Genachowski hit back at the GPS community in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, “It should be no surprise to anyone involved in the LightSquared matter that the company was planning for some time to deploy a major terrestrial network in the spectrum adjacent to GPS.” Members of the National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board have stated that they and the GPS community were not properly notified when the FCC removed the limit on the number of base stations deployed on this spectrum. And so it goes on. (See also LightSquared, FCC Rebuttals Distort Record.)

    Getting Intimate. Mobile phones are the most personal computing devices. How personal? iPass conducted a study of 3,700 mobile employees at 1,000 enterprises worldwide. Sixty-one percent of these mobile workers sleep with their smartphones and 43 percent of those within arm’s reach. It gets worse. 58 percent of those that sleep with their phones at least occasionally, check it during the night. Not surprisingly, almost a third of mobile workers say their relationship with their smartphone causes friction with their partner. I’d say.

    Frienemies. In a newly extended agreement, Google will continue to provide archrival Apple with map and search capabilities. This kills rampant rumors that Apple will have a home-grown mapping database ready in the near term. In March, AppleInsider discovered an Apple job listing for an iOS Maps Application Developer to “radically improve” Apple’s location-based services. Even for Apple, a mapping database will take time to develop.

    App Stores Aren’t the Holy Grail. App developers whose marketing strategy starts and ends with getting onto app store “shelves” need a reality check. With more than 200,000 apps on Google’s Android Market and 350,000 on the Apple store, it is hard to stand out. According to Distimo, 20 percent of free applications and 80 percent of all paid applications have been downloaded less than 100 times in the Google Android Market, worldwide. Ninety-six applications have been downloaded more than 5 million times, with Google Maps the winner, with more than 50 million downloads in the Android Market.

    Traffic Targeted. Navteq will begin delivering its traffic services in Transport Protocol Expert Group (TPEG) standard format to enable location-targeted traffic services with radius search capabilities and user authentication and session management. The format allows more targeted data to be delivered in smaller file sizes.

    Mobile Advertising Flying High. Many of the location content providers are counting on monetizing with mobile advertising, and things are looking good. AdMob is receiving more than 2.7 billion mobile ad requests daily, spanning more than 80,000 mobile applications and websites. Now they are introducing ads for tablet formats. Ad Mob was purchased by Google last year for $750 million.

    Snippets

    • Nokia is ending the confusion of its dual names by killing the Ovi brand. Ovi maps, Ovi e-mail, Ovi music, Ovi store, and other Ovi products will continue to operate under the Nokia brand name.
    • Industry-backed Future of Privacy Forum is launching a new ApplicationPrivacy.org website to help developers create their own privacy policies. Location privacy concerns have so far been focused on the big players like Apple and Google, but app providers have a critical role.
    • Firefox for Android now includes a “do not track” tool that signals all web pages, images and advertisers that the user doesn’t want to be tracked.
    • Taipei officials are ordering Apple and Google to offer free seven-day mobile app trials in alignment with Taiwan’s Consumer Protection Act.
    • Google is raking in more than 97 percent of U.S. mobile search spending. Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing share the remainder.

    Monetizing with Nothing. The Inside Virtual Goods report estimates $1.6 billion dollars was spent by game players on virtual goods last year and is predicting a 40 percent increase in 2011. There is a gender factor. MocoSpace, mobile entertainment provider, reports that although the percent of male players (53 percent) is only slightly higher than female, men account for 90 percent of all virtual goods purchased in their games. Can you lend me your sword, sir?