CPS says GSM location works well

24 Oct 2002 at 12:22 GMT Timo Poropudas

Cambridge Positioning Systems (CPS) strongly challenges the BWCS report "The Last Known Location of E-OTD". The report's findings were published yesterday in the Nordic Wireless Watch under the title "< href=" http://www.nordicwirelesswatch.com/wireless/story.html?story_id=2362/">GSM networks are failing the location test."

CPS has clearly very highs stakes in this discussion since it has already licensed its Cursor E-OTD solution to major network equipment vendors and handset manufacturers - including Ericsson, Siemens and Nokia. The company is also working with a number of other significant manufacturers towards the deployment of its technology.

CPS makes two main points in refuting BWCS' conclusions. It says that T-Mobile has actually met the FCC phase one requirements with E-OTD and that handsets perform a very small task in positioning and that they do not introduce inaccuracy into the system.

This is what CPS had to say and what BWCS mailed to all those that received the original report:

The report The Last Known Location of E-OTD makes a number of incorrect assumptions and assertions that we would challenge.

The report claims: - that E-OTD is unable to meet the FCC’s location performance requirements.

This is incorrect and wholly misleading. On 3 October 2002, T-Mobile filed results that clearly demonstrated compliance with the FCC’s current accuracy requirements for E-OTD. As far as we are aware, E-OTD remains the only E-911 technology with compliant operator filed results.

- technology reliability and performance: :
The description in the report of E-OTD technology and measurement methods in the handset and network are outdated. The assumptions about current performance are therefore misleading

Demonstrably and repeatedly, the current requirements for E-OTD have already been met. Progress towards the 2003 accuracy requirements is already being made. All the leading network equipment vendors – including Ericsson, Nortel Networks, Siemens and Nokia - back E-OTD as the standardized solution for GSM. They have formed a unique industry-wide group to drive the technology forward towards next year’s accuracy requirements. Working closely together, they have mapped out a program of activities to ensure that this target is met.

- limitations on the performance capability of handsets:
The report states that the E-OTD method substantially depends on handset capability. This is incorrect. The handset performs a simple task accurately, and prior to launch commercially undergoes a series of lab and field verification trials to guarantee performance in line with FCC requirements.

- those operators using U-TDOA do not have the same problems meeting FCC requirements:
We believe this is incorrect. As far we are aware there are no public results from operator trials on GSM networks using this technology. It should also be noted for network-based technologies leave emergency callers at risk by requiring lower accuracy performance.

The impact of U-TDOA on GSM networks remains unknown. As a non-standardized, non-industry backed solution, potential problems concerning the impact on the network have been raised, in particular, the impact on the network capacity.

- in Europe: :
We have significant and continued interest from operators and vendors in Europe. Trials are currently underway in a number of European countries – and in the Asia Pacific region – as operators explore both technology performance and validate the business case for high accuracy location based services.