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Location Aware Mobile Application Services
Xavier R. Lopez
Oracle Corporation
Xavier R. Lopez
Oracle Corporation
Mobile location based applications are about to become mainstream. Over the next few years, as more of us spend more time online, mobile phones and portable digital applicances will supplant stationary desktop systems as our preferred link to the Internet, corporate intranets, and portal services. The mobile telecommunications industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. More than 80 million people own cellular handsets in the United States today, and that number is expected to grow to over 120 million by 2001. If we look at the level of mobile penetration worldwide, there are were over 207 million mobile subscribers in 1998. This number is expected to increase to 605 million subscribers worldwide. What these number reveals is that the growth of mobile penetration is exceeding the growth of PC computing. Moroever, covergence of Internet computing (centralized portals delivering rich content over IP networks) with mobile telecommunications (delivery of subscription-based digital content
over wireless IP networks) lays the groundwork for a new class of services and devices that can enable mobile location services.
Major online services like America Online, Yahoo, and Microsoft MSN are adapting their offerings for mobile location-based services. Others are enhancing their online presence by providing location services to both their online and wireless customers:
MapQuest.com lets you look up addresses and find travel directions using wireless Palm VII; AirFlash.com can send information based on mobile location to find the nearest gas station; Visa.com helps you locate a nearby ATM; Moviephone provides movie time at nearby theaters; and Weather Channel gives you forcast based on location. These high useage of these sites is evidence of their growing popularity by wireless users. Mobile services providers can deliver much more than simply a pipe to access information on the Internet. An important type of service that can be supported by a location-based services infrastructure is the ability to determine the location and track the movement of wireless subscriber. For example, services such as roadside assistance, emergency E-911 response, navigation services, and “establishment locators”.
The introduction of FCC regulations to supply comprehensive location information on all system users for emergency situations has sparked an explosive growth location based capability. By October 2001, providers will need to have the capability to provide information to the emergency number (911) answering point that enables location of the mobile user within approximately 125 meters (410 ft) 67 percent of the time. While government regulation and emergency assistance applications are the driving forces behind the development and widespread deployment of this new generation of location services, the ability to determine the location of users within a wireless system has tremendous commercial application.
Location Based Services Market
Location based services are the center of great attention in both the Internet and wireless telecommunications market. Until recently, wireless location services have been seen as attractive only to highly specialized niche uses, such as operator assisted navigation systems and emergency response systems. However, the FCC regulations has created a new market for enhance location services. This mandate requires services providers to put in place an infrastructure that provide emergency service, in addition to a new class of chargeable location based services.
According to the Strategis Group, a leading telecommunications Research firm, the market for location based services is expected to generate $4 billion a year in annual service revenue. Many vendors (Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola) are in trials with service provider such as GTE, Bell Atlantic Mobile, US West, Vodaphone, AT&T among others. For and Internet portals and large organizations, this class of service provides an opportunity to deliver content to users via standard IP networks. As vendors and service providers put their infrastructure in place over the next 24 months, the levels of expenditures in hardware, software, radio and GPS technology, and content will easily exceed $10 billion.
Service Types
The separation of services from the telecom networks will lead to an establishment of an open, IP based service environment. In the initial phase it will primarily be datacom services which are implemented in this IP environment. However, soon technologies such as voice over IP will enable multimedia messaging services and real time call control services to be implemented in an open, IP based service environment. The first generation of location based services can roughly be divided into five categories:
The convergence of IT and mobile telecommunications is the driving force making this class of service possible
Positioning Technologies: Radio Network and Enhanced GPS
Several technologies have been advanced for locating cell phones, wirelesss PDAs and mobile devices. These can be broadly classed into two categories: base station triangulation methods and GPS-based methods. Triangulation methods use information about the location of the base station radios to triangulate on a mobile device, either with received radio signals or transmitted synchronization pulses. These type of infrastructure is being widely tested for deployment to satisfy FCC requirements.
In all triangulation methods, the a minimum of three base stations—or three base stations are required to to obtain a position fix on the mobile device. In urban and some suburban areas, mobiles are typically in contact with three or more base stations. Here, the accuracy of the position fix is largely determined by the quality of the synchronization pulses and the presence of multipath conditions. In other words, the greater the building density in an urban area, the poorer the accuracy of the position fix. To further complicate matters, mobiles are typically in contact with fewer than three base stations in rural areas, making triangulation difficult if not impossible.
GPS-based methods are considered complementary to base station triangulation methods, because they address areas where triangulation methods fall short. For example, conventional GPS performs very well in suburban and rural areas, where the view of the sky is unobstructed. Enhanced GPS may also perform better in dense urban areas where there are severe multipath conditions, as GPS is a dynamic system with constantly moving satellites. Additionally, several methods have been proposed and tested that would greatly increase the accuracy of GPS. In the final analysis, the wireless telecom industry has decided that some combination of methods will be deployed to locate mobile phones, with enhanced GPS being a longer-term, universal solution. The enhanced GPS systems can require no cell site modification and can take advantage of enhancements to handsets and by upgrading location server capabilty. One drawback to the enhanced GPS infrastructure is that it passes the cost of location technology to the device vendors, whereas with radio triangulation, the service provider absorbes the cost of the infrastructure.
Table 1: Comparative advantages of Network and Enhanced GPS systems
Source: Snaptrack.com
IP Based Service Environments for Location Capability
The telecom market will for the next couple of years be characterised by a transition of services from proprietary solutions and network close implementations, to an open, IP based service environment. An operator’s Intranet and the Internet will become the strategic service environment where new services are implemented, services are packaged and integrated and where an operator with limited costs and short lead time can try out and introduce new services.
The increased competition will drive operators to pursue new service opportunities in order to attract and maintain a subscriber base. For the next year, operators and vendors expect that the most important services to launch on the market include content services, electronic commerce and positioning services. Since these services are very much datacom services, it is typically these services which an operator will start to implement in an IP based service environment.
The IP based service environment, for example a positioning application, will inter-work with the telecom network over gateways which provide access to information that resides in the network. The positioning service will be an important component in this open, IP based service environment. The bundling of positioning information with the services described above, messaging services and call services will be key, for any operator when offering service packages to the subscribers.
Figure: Service implementation in a mobile network. Positioning applications will be able to retrieve location information from the wireless networks via gateway functionality.
Oracle8i Location Based Services Infrastructure
As Internet mapping and location services become part of all major Internet portal sites, they will be built on a high performance spatial Internet platform. Large organizations no longer design systems around a client/server computing paradigm that has been made irrelevant by the Internet. The performance requirements of large enterprises and the Internet requires an architecture that is inherently scalable, flexible, and reliable. The next generation of spatial and location systems must leverage new server technologies like: extensible indexing, OLTP, OLAP, parallelism, security, reliability, all of which are delivered by mainstream database technology. The spatial information industry is now awakening to the inherent requirements of deploying enterprise and Internet class applications. This means building upon an IT architecture designed to address the requirements of a new class of enterprise and Internet based services.
The "Spatial Internet Solution on Oracle8i" serves as a foundation for the next generation of spatial and location-based applications. It is designed to serve as the engine for deploying a rich variety of Spatial and multimedia applications built around industry standards like SQL, Java, XML, WAP, and CORBA. The combination of Oracle8I, Oracle Spatial, Jserver provides a foundation for the delivery of Internet based location services.
300% Java in the Spatial Internet Solution
The strategy for delivering Java to the enterprise requires support for building extensible applications across all tiers. This support comes in the form of tools, applications, database and application servers, and Java APIs. This support enables applications developers to incorporate new multimedia types into the emerging class of mobile multimedia services. Further, these Java products seamlessly execute in the client, application, and database tiers:
Location Based Services Architecture
Remaining Challenges
Some significant challenges for the adoption universal adoption of mobile E911 location services remain. As noted by the Strategis Group, these include:
References
Major online services like America Online, Yahoo, and Microsoft MSN are adapting their offerings for mobile location-based services. Others are enhancing their online presence by providing location services to both their online and wireless customers:
MapQuest.com lets you look up addresses and find travel directions using wireless Palm VII; AirFlash.com can send information based on mobile location to find the nearest gas station; Visa.com helps you locate a nearby ATM; Moviephone provides movie time at nearby theaters; and Weather Channel gives you forcast based on location. These high useage of these sites is evidence of their growing popularity by wireless users. Mobile services providers can deliver much more than simply a pipe to access information on the Internet. An important type of service that can be supported by a location-based services infrastructure is the ability to determine the location and track the movement of wireless subscriber. For example, services such as roadside assistance, emergency E-911 response, navigation services, and “establishment locators”.
The introduction of FCC regulations to supply comprehensive location information on all system users for emergency situations has sparked an explosive growth location based capability. By October 2001, providers will need to have the capability to provide information to the emergency number (911) answering point that enables location of the mobile user within approximately 125 meters (410 ft) 67 percent of the time. While government regulation and emergency assistance applications are the driving forces behind the development and widespread deployment of this new generation of location services, the ability to determine the location of users within a wireless system has tremendous commercial application.
Location Based Services Market
Location based services are the center of great attention in both the Internet and wireless telecommunications market. Until recently, wireless location services have been seen as attractive only to highly specialized niche uses, such as operator assisted navigation systems and emergency response systems. However, the FCC regulations has created a new market for enhance location services. This mandate requires services providers to put in place an infrastructure that provide emergency service, in addition to a new class of chargeable location based services.
According to the Strategis Group, a leading telecommunications Research firm, the market for location based services is expected to generate $4 billion a year in annual service revenue. Many vendors (Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola) are in trials with service provider such as GTE, Bell Atlantic Mobile, US West, Vodaphone, AT&T among others. For and Internet portals and large organizations, this class of service provides an opportunity to deliver content to users via standard IP networks. As vendors and service providers put their infrastructure in place over the next 24 months, the levels of expenditures in hardware, software, radio and GPS technology, and content will easily exceed $10 billion.
Service Types
The separation of services from the telecom networks will lead to an establishment of an open, IP based service environment. In the initial phase it will primarily be datacom services which are implemented in this IP environment. However, soon technologies such as voice over IP will enable multimedia messaging services and real time call control services to be implemented in an open, IP based service environment. The first generation of location based services can roughly be divided into five categories:
- Safety Services: These include emergency and vehicle support services. These services are requested by a user in the event of an emergency, or it may be initiated automatically, for example when a car breaks down. These type of services can expect to gain a high market acceptance due to the general concern of the public for the personal security. However, as noted above FCC regulations are driving the penetration of these services, and will be one of the first class of services rolled out over the coming 12 months.
- Tracking Services: These services include vehicle tracking, logistic systems, fleet management, and people tracking services. Today, many of these services are offered by legacy, mobile data system. However, with the general availability of CDMA and GSM wireless capability, it is likely that many of these services will be merged into the digital wireless networks.
- Information Services: These 411 type services comprise a vast area of applications. Some of the services that first come to mind includes traffic information, navigation assistance, yellow pages, travel/tourism services, etc. Many of these information are completely automated, while others are intermediated by a live operator.
- Billing Services: Such services offers the possibility to offer differentiated charging depending on a subscriber’s location. Typical example can be home zone services, promotional billing as part of a corporate arrangement such as VPN etc.
- Mobile Web Portal Services: This type of service enables users with a new class of WAP enabled phones to access the Web. For example, “location aware” devices will combine some of the first 3 services above to deliver “local” news, weather, and traffic information determined by location of device – all provided through an icon-based GUI. Users will be able to access favorite Web thereby extending the reach of the Web beyond desktop.
The convergence of IT and mobile telecommunications is the driving force making this class of service possible
Positioning Technologies: Radio Network and Enhanced GPS
Several technologies have been advanced for locating cell phones, wirelesss PDAs and mobile devices. These can be broadly classed into two categories: base station triangulation methods and GPS-based methods. Triangulation methods use information about the location of the base station radios to triangulate on a mobile device, either with received radio signals or transmitted synchronization pulses. These type of infrastructure is being widely tested for deployment to satisfy FCC requirements.
In all triangulation methods, the a minimum of three base stations—or three base stations are required to to obtain a position fix on the mobile device. In urban and some suburban areas, mobiles are typically in contact with three or more base stations. Here, the accuracy of the position fix is largely determined by the quality of the synchronization pulses and the presence of multipath conditions. In other words, the greater the building density in an urban area, the poorer the accuracy of the position fix. To further complicate matters, mobiles are typically in contact with fewer than three base stations in rural areas, making triangulation difficult if not impossible.
GPS-based methods are considered complementary to base station triangulation methods, because they address areas where triangulation methods fall short. For example, conventional GPS performs very well in suburban and rural areas, where the view of the sky is unobstructed. Enhanced GPS may also perform better in dense urban areas where there are severe multipath conditions, as GPS is a dynamic system with constantly moving satellites. Additionally, several methods have been proposed and tested that would greatly increase the accuracy of GPS. In the final analysis, the wireless telecom industry has decided that some combination of methods will be deployed to locate mobile phones, with enhanced GPS being a longer-term, universal solution. The enhanced GPS systems can require no cell site modification and can take advantage of enhancements to handsets and by upgrading location server capabilty. One drawback to the enhanced GPS infrastructure is that it passes the cost of location technology to the device vendors, whereas with radio triangulation, the service provider absorbes the cost of the infrastructure.
Table 1: Comparative advantages of Network and Enhanced GPS systems
| Radio Network | Enhanced GPS | |
| Cost | Large capital investments for network infrastructure | Handset-based and server based, Low marginal cost |
| Installation | Complex installation; network modification | Minimal installation; no new cell sites |
| Reception | Location can be determined within 50-200 meters depending on network | Location can be determined within 5-100 meters depending on device |
| Capability | Useful for location services where precision is not critical | Useful for location services where precision is important: dispatch, driving directions, billing |
Source: Snaptrack.com
IP Based Service Environments for Location Capability
The telecom market will for the next couple of years be characterised by a transition of services from proprietary solutions and network close implementations, to an open, IP based service environment. An operator’s Intranet and the Internet will become the strategic service environment where new services are implemented, services are packaged and integrated and where an operator with limited costs and short lead time can try out and introduce new services.
The increased competition will drive operators to pursue new service opportunities in order to attract and maintain a subscriber base. For the next year, operators and vendors expect that the most important services to launch on the market include content services, electronic commerce and positioning services. Since these services are very much datacom services, it is typically these services which an operator will start to implement in an IP based service environment.
The IP based service environment, for example a positioning application, will inter-work with the telecom network over gateways which provide access to information that resides in the network. The positioning service will be an important component in this open, IP based service environment. The bundling of positioning information with the services described above, messaging services and call services will be key, for any operator when offering service packages to the subscribers.
Figure: Service implementation in a mobile network. Positioning applications will be able to retrieve location information from the wireless networks via gateway functionality.
Oracle8i Location Based Services Infrastructure
As Internet mapping and location services become part of all major Internet portal sites, they will be built on a high performance spatial Internet platform. Large organizations no longer design systems around a client/server computing paradigm that has been made irrelevant by the Internet. The performance requirements of large enterprises and the Internet requires an architecture that is inherently scalable, flexible, and reliable. The next generation of spatial and location systems must leverage new server technologies like: extensible indexing, OLTP, OLAP, parallelism, security, reliability, all of which are delivered by mainstream database technology. The spatial information industry is now awakening to the inherent requirements of deploying enterprise and Internet class applications. This means building upon an IT architecture designed to address the requirements of a new class of enterprise and Internet based services.
The "Spatial Internet Solution on Oracle8i" serves as a foundation for the next generation of spatial and location-based applications. It is designed to serve as the engine for deploying a rich variety of Spatial and multimedia applications built around industry standards like SQL, Java, XML, WAP, and CORBA. The combination of Oracle8I, Oracle Spatial, Jserver provides a foundation for the delivery of Internet based location services.
300% Java in the Spatial Internet Solution
The strategy for delivering Java to the enterprise requires support for building extensible applications across all tiers. This support comes in the form of tools, applications, database and application servers, and Java APIs. This support enables applications developers to incorporate new multimedia types into the emerging class of mobile multimedia services. Further, these Java products seamlessly execute in the client, application, and database tiers:
- Database Tier: Oracle8i Spatial in combination with Jserver, Oracle’s Java Virtual Machne, provide leading technology for spatial data management and the deployment of location based services. Oracle Spatial is a fast, scalable, and high availability platform for the delivery of location based services. It leverages the power of Oracle8i for the delivery of a new class of location dependent business applications, web portals, and mobile appliances.
- Application Tier: Software vendors provide a middle-tier Java application server framework enabling Java programmers to easily develop scalable applications. These middle-tier location applications like Oracle Application Server and Portal to Go for the delivery of specialized location-based business objects (region modeling, query services, event services, location based caching) using Java and XML. Knowledge of client devices will determine level of preprocessing (e.g graphic generalization).
- Client Tier: Java is already the language of choice for lightweight clients such as Web browsers. Using Oracle8i Lite for persistent storage, Web phones and wireless PDAs can now store, query, and update mapping and attribute information in a small footprint object oriented database. Intelligent client interfaces automatically report their display capabilities to middle tier services.
Location Based Services Architecture
Remaining Challenges
Some significant challenges for the adoption universal adoption of mobile E911 location services remain. As noted by the Strategis Group, these include:
- Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) readiness. PSAPs are a critical link in the mobile E911 system. They are in charge of directing emergency services after receiving an emergency call. They must deliver a call back number and a general calling location.
- E911 Funding. While legislation is driving early work in development of location based services, those service providers with deepest pockets are able to carry out early trials. Funding for E911 development continues to be a challenge for many mobile services providers
- Liability exposure: E911 services are not new to telecommunication service providers. However, readiness of the location radio and GPS to find “dynamic” objects introduces great concern over liability exposure. To miminize such exposure it will be essential that mobile E911 systems become nearly 100% fault tolerant.
- Interoperability: There are multiple digital communications standards deployed in the US making interoperability a challenge. Likewise, vendors are introducing a variety of incompatible location based servers that will need to be interoperable nationwide to support E911.
References
- The Strategis Group, US Telematics Marketplace: 1999, Washington D.C.