GSM camp is in a hurry to catch the LBS train — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{ABI Research:} GSM camp is in a hurry to catch the LBS train

7 Nov 2004 at 11:44 GMT Timo Poropudas

By 2005 the GSM camp needs to have LBS in their strategic plan or they will find themselves at a disadvantage, according to ABI Research's principal analyst of semiconductor research, Alan Varghese.

He believes that while the GSM operators settled for less accurate network positioning solutions such as Cell-ID and TDOA in order to meet FCC E911 requirements, they better not wait much longer to mandate GPS in the handset, or they will find themselves "lost" as far as LBS are concerned.

GPS technology in the cellular handset had some drawbacks initially - it took about 20 seconds to get a position fix from a cold start, for example. And GPS ICs added up to about USD 15, making them too expensive to integrate into such a cost sensitive device.

Meanwhile the CDMA camp, with Qualcomm at its helm, had already integrated GPS functionality into their chipset. Today CDMA operators such as SK Telecom in Korea and KDDI in Japan offer location-based services that provide them increased ARPU and market share.

Nextel in the U.S., with its proprietary iDEN handsets, has used the SIRF GPS chipset to offer navigation as well as asset and employee logistics to their enterprise customers, who propel them to the highest ARPUs in the nation.

"Does the price of the GPS IC really need to hit the magic USD 5 number before GSM vendors take notice?" asks Varghese.

"That may be the case," he says, "but they'd better not wait that long."

(The theme of the November 29 MobileMonday event in Helsinki is LBS.)