Open standards in location based services


The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) vision of the LBS technology area is as shown in Figure 1. This approach provides for independent existence of players in all the service areas and also provides for standard interfaces between each.


The Pizza Story

Here the Client services are the part of solutions that exists within the mobile units whereas the gateway services are a part of the Wireless network service providers system. Application Service and the Warehouse services.

An offering in the area of LBS combines technical offerings in the area of wireless communication, mobile computing, positioning technology (GPS or alternative), GIS and GIS based services.

Also based on the flow of information the services can be classified as Push, Pull or Combination services. While pull services mainly require the user to request for the information the push services are delivered to based on the position automatically.


Open Standards LBS Vision

Conventional Services in Location Based Services
The Following points briefly describe the conventional services that are available in the area of location-based services.
  • Wireless Service Providers (also termed as Gateway Service Providers) have provided basic Location based services to its consumers. The positioning technology involved in such offerings ranged from signal based technology to GPS systems.
  • The data interchange between each module uses proprietary formats and interfaces to the system are available at the periphery only
  • Application Service Providers who are partners to these service providers mentioned above develop LBS applications on Development platforms given to them.
  • The Application service provider rents GIS data servers and data updating to third party vendor or by them.
  • The GIS data Servers are based on proprietary or open standards based. The server is chosen based on the Application Service Provider’s requirements.
  • The Mobile Device manufacturers in association with Network Gateway Manufacturer provide LBS applications capabilities on the handheld devices.
The user of the service receives LBS information through different proprietary systems that are under a common business understanding. Commercial and technical interoperability between each system is on case-to-case basis.


IP Layering and Protocol Encapsulation with Location Data


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