Dominique Bonte at ABI says we can expect to see huge increases in revenues from Carriers purchasing LBS infrastructure upgrades, namely around OMA-SUPL standards-compliant platforms that leverage GPS chipset commodities in handsets. The specific number is $2.2B by 2013. Dominique's work in the area of Outdoor GPS is conservative and therefore what I consider honest and good, so I respect what he has to say, but I'm having a hard time swallowing this pill.

The first wave of Carrier LBS infrastructure deployments lasted about 3 years between 1999 and 2001, and after that brief time when MPCs and GMLCs were purchased as standalone pieces of monolithic SS7 equipment, larger infrastructure players such as Ericsson and Nokia started giving the stuff away with network upgrades, destroying business models overnight for those focused on selling standalone LBS gear. Today, everything is IP-based with SUPL, and that means no more fork lifting redundancies of monstrous, expensive, fault-tolerant servers, but rather installing IT-grade inexpensive racks that handle TCP/IP and SIP traffic. The software that runs on it is equally IT-grade and should only command the same inexpensive price tag for a carrier. Compound this with the arrival of Google's Cell-ID offering beyond the command & control of wireless networks, further reducing the value of this once carrier-only information asset, and I wonder... who will pony-up the projected billions to pay infrastructure providers for what is now a commodity?

Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) with the Web is introducing a melting pot view of Location as a morphed creation with no discrete heritage or affiliation to a specific camp, and the cellular regime is loosing its grip on 'their' Location power tool.  Maximiliano Firtman (I guess that's his real name) over at Nokia's Forum has a nice review of the various Location options available which span networks, devices, methods, and cultural attitudes.  Welcome to the new world!   

So I've been too busy to comment on news, but heard about Verizon allegedly opening up under pressure (I'll believe it when I see it), about Google's 700 Mhz "money where our mouth is" intention, and about MyLocation.  What do they all have in common?  Freedom, and the impending end of a tyrannical good ol' boys club of privileged access to scarce mobile Location resources. 

The later is remarkable.  I don't think MyLocation is RF science or algorithmic, but rather sources inherent handset-based Cell-ID keys and couples them with anonymous and voluntary GPS positions through Maps usage, which is elegant; as is appending voluntary address inputs with Cell-ID keys to further build up the database.  It's classic Google and looks like what LBS old-timers might consider a wisdom of the crowds MPC/GMLC minus the privacy management mechanics.

...Lets hope this manifests itself as a wrecking ball against walls for Cell-ID access and perceived value, allowing anyone to start building applications, not just those who have built their business on courting carriers who still foolishly assume this data is worth something.  These guys aren't so special now, neither is the information, and I suspect you'll be free to compete in an open market soon enough (and once this is commoditized by the very people who use and generate it).

Socialight's volunteered views to psfk for their work in enabling UK cross-carrier Cell-ID Location cooperation needed for Mobile Social Networking, highlights the first rule non-exclusive need for LBS wares to traverse networks. Case in point—traffic transparency that we see today in the US and globally for SMS and MMS, but lacking for Location traffic.

For those unfamiliar with this UK Location history, carriers gathered together, identified a cooperative need for wholesale, and decided to collectively expose their data at different prices. What followed was an explosive build of start-ups launching what each marketed as cross-carrier LBS 'partnerships' and wholesale pricing claims towards innovation. Due credit however in reality belongs to Parliament and advocates, rather than to app providers still piggy-backing on the accomplishment. 

The below is a sample output of the initial effort, which today now seems like a bloated set of pricing for a commodity - one which US carriers still resist to offer up collectively. 

The SiRF Location 2.0 Summit last week deserves additional mention. It was a well-organized set of panels high in content and low in company marketing spin. One of the big macro themes of the conference was defining measurable benchmarks or challenges that need to be cleared for the broader LBS space to finally reach it's true potential. One area of discussion involved the key challenges still confronting LBS developers today. I wanted to throw out my top 4 list.

(1) Privacy. This is still one of the first hurdles to offering any location-aware service. Everyone knows it but few have it right. It will continue to be an point of strong focus after recent social networking child safety press. I would not be surprised if the majority of proposed LBS apps today are blocked from launch by carrier legal departments (for good reason). As an industry and in partnership, acceptable location privacy standards must be defined, supported and embedded in location access technologies. The CTIA and other wireless leadership groups are working through best practices; it remains to be seen how quickly carriers and vendors adopt these recommended policies.

(2) Location Cost. This continues to be a significant challenge to the launch of high frequency location-aware applications. The easy out is to claim the carrier's are charging too much for access to location information. The likely answer is more complex than that. I believe one of the largest reasons location is so costly today is initial location deployments were motivated by E911 requirements, bringing along a cost structure and complexity of implementation that is not required for the majority of commercial LBS apps. Hopefully, with the growing movement towards user plane and IP location solutions, location information will approach the ubiquity and cost of current DNS services. To date, mobile carriers have selected the same vendor to provide both emergency and commercial LBS infrastructure in general. Carriers separating the procurement of emergency and commercial location is one option that could reduce the cost of commercial location information.

(3) Mobile Device Fragmentation. Anyone that has built a mobile app has struggled to develop for and QA multiple handset form factors, seemingly random J2ME implementation bugs, and the challenges of getting users to download a mobile app. Some carrier environments are better than others (i.e. BREW), however the vast majority of handsets today present extreme challenges for an end user interested in paying for, downloading and running any new app. As a developer, it is a struggle to address a large customer base given the fragmentation of devices by carrier, network technology, vendor, mobile OS, etc. These challenges alone can explain the difference in $ market size of the PC software vs. mobile software industries. This is not a location specific challenge, but the device barrier is multiplied again by the varying levels of location API support from device to device, and carrier to carrier. This will not get better until carriers and device OEMs adopt more consistent and stringent requirements for mobile app runtimes and location API support. Nokia, Apple, soon Google, other smartphone vendors and (the hope of) mobile Linux appear to be targeting simplifying development across their mobile platforms. However, it will take some time to filter down to feature phones, and will continue to be a significant barrier to the broader adoption of LBS apps (or any mobile apps for that matter).

(4) Location Accuracy & Availability. Different location apps require different levels of location accuracy. The prevalence and availability of high accuracy A-GPS has clearly motivated strong interest in navigation services of late. However, there is a wide range of location accuracy when considering A-GPS to Cell-ID. For example, mobile social networking in general can make due with block level location accuracy (intersection of streets, in-between Cell-ID and A-GPS). Many social uses of location are also challenged due to weak GPS signal reception in urban or indoor areas. Availability of different levels of location granularity (and hopefully at different costs) would be a big boon to LBS developers. It is unclear how this will evolve since some of the strongest proponents of mobile LBS are directly vested in deploying A-GPS. LBS developers will need the support of both carriers and vendors to provide a broader set of location accuracies and to ensure availability across all environments.

There are obviously more challenges that the mobile LBS industry is facing. Working to solve these 4 would be a great start.

Chris Silver Smith has posted an informative article on geolocation and click-fraud detection at Search Engine Land. It is interesting to note the various players going after this space and the variety of location determination approaches.

Mobile location is not handled in depth specifically. However, the proxying challenge associated with mobile carrier data networks is noted as a barrier to using traditional reverse location lookup on the IP address. Skyhook Wireless and Mexens Technology (Navizon) do make article appearances.

The article is primarily focused on the accuracy of the geolocation results. However, even with 90-95% accuracy and errors greater than 20 miles at times, there is a growing market for more geolocation vendors and solutions. A large amount of mobile LBS is focused on higher accuracy location. It is nice to see much fuzzier location determination generating some value. Makes you wonder how creative developers could be with even accessible cell-id in the US ...

Japan's DoCoMo and KDDI are teaming to offer an early warning earthquake alert system to mobile subscribers. While the service will target email alert distribution based on impacted geography, expect to see cell sites used to broadcast alerts versus location pings on impacted subscribers—server-centric Location query loads will choke the network.

With Sprint’s help, Slippery Rock, PA police were able to help Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh locate a 10 year old boy in need of a heart transplant. John Paul May and his mother were attending a jazz concert at Slippery Rock University, when police "stopped the jazz concert that was happening and announced they were looking for May and his mother, Sue. The crowd of some 500 jumped to their feet and gave the boy a standing ovation as he left…"

-ThePittsburghChannel.com

Mobile Entertainment reports on some uneasiness rippling through the mobile community with regard to Nokia’s incursion into the mobile advertising space, citing carriers and their networks have a valuable ad-insertion role to play.

A previous post I mentioned that Mobile Social Software’s aren’t very social given the current anti-social setup of inter-carrier exchanges, or lack thereof.  Foreign Policy echoes that problem, suggesting that these services will “never take off beyond a small urban audience because mobile carriers won't agree on a single standard”.