Polaris Wireless, a privately held wireless location company based in Santa Clara, California, is the global leader in providing high accuracy, software-based location systems for accurately determining the location of mobile phones.

The Polaris solution is ideal for E911 Phase II compliance services, wireless location-based service applications such as push advertising, yellow pages, social networking, friend or family tracking and enterprise applications such as work force and asset or fleet tracking applications. The solution can also be used by wireless operators for network optimisation analysis and by law enforcement agencies for lawful interception purposes.

Dr Martin Feuerstein, chief technology officer at Polaris, has been attending the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearings on privacy. He gave TheWhereBusiness some insights into mobile privacy issues.

Privacy is currently a contentious topic in the mobile industry, the more so since Google Buzz, Google Street View, Facebook and other companies have been prominently in the news for their respective actions in harvesting user information or making this data or users' locations available to third parties. With Polaris's central position in location technology it was logical that the company might want to follow the FCC proceedings closely.

Dr Feuerstein is an observer who would know exactly what the hearings entail. He received a BE degree in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University, an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He has more than 20 years of experience in research, development and deployment of wireless products. During his career he has produced many publications and more than a dozen patents in wireless telecom.

TheWhereBusiness: How well informed are the law-makers about the whole issue of mobile and Internet privacy? Are they served by knowledgeable researchers or lobbyists? Do they get both sides of the story? 

Martin Feuerstein: In general, lawmakers and industry bodies in the US are now extremely sensitive to the privacy and security concerns of the public. This awareness has been fuelled by recent, high-profile Internet debacles (such as Facebook's privacy issues, Google's Wi-Fi spy scandal, large-scale identity theft cases, and so on). There is growing recognition that location information adds a new and potentially controversial dimension to the privacy and security debate.

As an example, the US Congress's House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties recently held hearings on revising the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). This was a public hearing with a number of interested parties, including privacy advocates like the Digital Due Process Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stating their viewpoints. Government regulators are definitely getting both sides of the story.

To create a framework for the industry, the Wireless Association (CTIA) and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) have each independently developed guidelines on privacy and security for emerging location-based services. These guidelines involve the concept of "opt-in" where users' preferences are captured by their explicit acceptance of the service and associated information usage.

The guidelines also define how application and service providers may use personal information, such as recommended data retention practices. As in the Internet world, these guidelines are designed to provide consumers with confidence in how privacy and security will be handled.

TWB: Future legislation may possibly restrict the extent to which commercial enterprises may use people's personal information, but can it solve the problem of users blithely giving away their information? Recent research in the UK shows a surprising percentage of people happily share their location and other information with complete strangers.

MF: You've raised a critical point. The whole concept of effective privacy management has at its foundation the premise that users are both responsible and aware of how they share their personal information.

Societal norms are rapidly evolving as new technologies proliferate. The US Supreme Court noted last month that "rapid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission are evident, not just in the technology itself but in what society accepts as proper behaviour" [City of Ontario, California, and others versus Quon, Docket Number 08-1332, page 11, June 17, 2010]. An entire generation of teenagers, having grown up with the Internet, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, cell phones with cameras and so forth, harbour dramatically more open views about privacy compared to prior generations. Proper behaviour has shifted radically in the direction of sharing, not just with family and friends, but also in many cases with strangers.

Academic researchers have found that users do quite freely share their location if they are given user-friendly privacy policy controls and clear feedback about when and by whom their information is gathered [for more information on this topic, see Carnegie Mellon University's Mobile Commerce Lab presentation at the 2008 WPI Workshop on RF Localization for Next Generation Wireless Devices].

Initially users are often sceptical about sharing, but those barriers are quickly eroded when the benefits of sharing become evident. These benefits could be in the form of social networks (meeting a friend at the nearby pub) or economic (receiving a useful and relevant coupon or advertisement), but there must be some enticing "reward" for sharing. Some surveys have reported that for a modest reward fee - about 30 euros - users would be willing to freely share their location information.

As with any aspect of human behaviour, government legislators cannot regulate common sense. Nor can technologists for that matter. But regulators and technologists can put in place frameworks which give users adequate controls - clear choices, conservative default settings, relevant feedback and even warnings when recommended norms are being exceeded. At that point, ultimately it's up to users to decide.

TWB: Is there a case to be made for special exceptions to privacy laws? I'm thinking of the monitoring of criminal or terror activities, and also the value of instantly knowing location and related information, such as pre-existing medical conditions, in emergency situations.

MF: Absolutely, precedents for special exceptions to privacy laws already exist. One example is emergency call services, such as E911/112, which provide location information to public safety call takers. When a user makes an emergency call, they are by definition making a request to public safety agencies, and hence privacy rules for location and caller identity are overridden. This approach is clearly in the public interest and saves lives.

Another exception is Lawfully Authorised Electronic Surveillance (LEAS), where law enforcement agencies can gather content of communications and associated information, such as location, which is specifically authorised by appropriate legal entities through judicial or administrative orders (for example, court orders, warrants). These capabilities provide law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to apprehend criminals and terrorists operating in the modern world of mobile communications.

Polaris provides high accuracy location products that service both the emergency call E911/112 and law enforcement markets, as well as consumer location-based services.

Today, these special exceptions are narrowly defined for specific purposes. It's possible that they could be expanded in the future for broader categories of emergency situations that are in the public good.

However, privacy concerns may limit the degree to which location and related information may be shared, even with emergency responders. Likely, users would need to opt in by signing up for a service that reports their information, such as a person with a special medical condition agreeing to share that information under particular circumstances.

Three years ago, the company launched its Wireless Location Signatures solution, which leverages RF pattern-matching technology, Allegra said. The solution lets law-enforcement agencies track the whereabouts and movements of suspected criminals. The stack resides on the agency's communications network. When activated, it sends a silent page to the suspect's phone; once the page is received, the suspect's phone then transmits the location data needed to do the tracking back to the network. All of this occurs without the suspect realizing it.

The implications of such a capability would be enormous for law enforcement, Allegra said. For example, the solution could trigger an alarm when two or more known criminals or suspects meet. Also, studies have shown that people's movements are highly predictable, he said. So, long-term tracking of known suspects could help law-enforcement and homeland-security officials prevent major crimes and terrorist attacks.

For security reasons, Allegra declined to identify which two countries the solution has been deployed in, only saying that the first deployment was in the Middle East. So far, the company has found no takers in the U.S., which has more-stringent privacy laws compared with the rest of the world.

"In the U.S., this would require a warrant because of the privacy laws," Allegra said. "In some countries, the level of privacy laws is much lower and less restrictive."

Allegra agreed that some level of privacy protection should be afforded to citizens - "There has to be some limits, because we're talking about the power of government" - but believes that laws could be amended to allow a solution that not only would help to catch criminals but also to predict what they might do next.

"Think about the power of something like this," he said. "In my mind, this is an incredible tool that one day will become as indispensible as 911 is today."

"We are committed to bringing robust and assured capabilities to our customers, and the Polaris location solution is the ideal enabler for our managed E911 Phase II service," said Andrew Silberstein, Vice President and General Manager of Globecomm Network Services. "Polaris differentiates our offering with superior performance and cost advantages that are equally available to our wireless-operator customers across the spectrum of network evolution."

Globecomm delivers turnkey total telecommunications solutions providing professional engineering services, managed network services and full lifecycle support to a variety of customers, including wireless operators. Globecomm will manage the E911 Phase II service from its network operations center in Hauppauge, N.Y. Polaris software will enable Globecomm GSM and CDMA hosted services customers to meet FCC Phase II requirements for providing real-time, highly precise location data to emergency responders when mobile-device users dial "911."

The Polaris solution requires no deployment of additional hardware by Globecomm or its customers; nor do the wireless operators have to make changes to their subscribers' handsets. The Globecomm managed E911 Phase II service will deliver complete network coverage and 100-percent service availability for its customers across their subscriber bases, as well as across 2G and 3G networks.

"This is an entirely new and critical distribution model for Polaris, as the partnership will expand our footprint to a much broader set of wireless operators who seek the simplicity and sustainable cost efficiency of Globecomm's value-added managed services," said Bhavin Shah, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Polaris Wireless. "We have a proven, high-accuracy location solution that 21 carriers and multiple law-enforcement agencies rely on around the world, but this partnership with Globecomm establishes the first managed E911 Phase II service based on Polaris technology."

Manlio Allegra, president and CEO of Polaris Wireless, has neatly summed up why this is such an important challenge. He said: "To attract a new wave of interest from business customers or consumers, next-generation commercial LBS must be able to rapidly and precisely locate any and all users automatically where people live and work - inside places like office buildings, shopping malls and homes. In the gathering commercial LBS marketplace, indoors and urban areas are where it's at."

Part one of this two-part feature presented a short overview of where 3G technology is right now, then pointed towards some of the general developments that 4G (fourth generation) mobile communications will encourage. This concluding instalment summarises which 4G technology is expected to dominate; some of the mobile technical enhancements that will become practical with 4G; how LBS will evolve for consumers, enterprises and advertisers; and which organisations are likely to gain or lose based on their current strategies.

The shift towards LTE

Here's the 4G debate of the moment: WiMax or LTE? According to ABI Research, the first really significant pointer to the eventual outcome has emerged in Russia.

ABI reported just over a week ago that Russian operator Yota had announced its intention to cover its next 15 cities with LTE, not WiMax, as it phases in its 4G service. Yota added that Moscow and St. Petersburg would have full LTE coverage by the end of next year.

ABI views this as "the first sign of the much-debated shift in operator loyalties from WiMax to TD-LTE."

Let's quickly clarify what we're talking about.

• WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a telecommunications protocol that provides fixed and fully mobile Internet access through metropolitan area networks.

• LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a high-performance air interface for cellular mobile telephony. LTE has already received a powerful endorsement in the USA. Public safety agencies in the US have stated their preference for LTE for the new 700MHz public safety radio band.

TD-LTE, a high-definition application of LTE, is still largely experimental. ABI noted that it would take some time for TD-LTE to be deployed outside its core markets, such as like China.

ABI has released a useful tool for keeping track of 4G locations. At present there are about 1,000 4G locations worldwide, and roughly as many fixed 802.16d locations which are not strictly 4G. With 4G in a state of flux, the number of installations is growing rapidly.

ABI's 4G Deployment Tracker is based on Google Earth. It displays location and other critical data for every known 4G network, and the supporting database will be updated quarterly. Cities with 4G deployments are indicated by colour-coded push-pins showing the type of 4G air interface.

Location and pattern matching

LBS has been given a head start in the move to 4G, according to Polaris's Manlio Allegra. He points out that many operators are already investing in the technology needed for next-generation LBS.

One such investment has occurred in pattern-matching technologies that refine and harden the location element in mission-critical public safety applications such as emergency response, government security and law enforcement. Pattern matching is being extended to commercial LBS.

Manlio comments: "Breakthroughs in how precisely, quickly and reliably mobile devices can be pinpointed are set to transform the LBS user experience."

Commercial LBS in its current form is typically limited to turn-by-turn navigation and points of interest or mobile search. This is where the weakness described by Manlio becomes evident, namely, the difficulty of achieving precise location.

Network-based pattern matching offers one solution. It is a software-based location method that operates independently of Wi-Fi or GPS on/off settings. The operator and the user need no additional hardware for pattern matching to work.

In this solution, the signal strength data, time delays and other network measurements are compared against a database of predicted values. Since every mobile device has a unique signature value, the device can be identified and located accordingly. Pattern matching can locate devices across an operator's entire subscriber base.

Pattern matching is becoming more precise. Currently it can locate a mobile subscriber to within 50 metres, consistently and in real time, even when the user is indoors or in an urban canyon. However, Manlio says: "Shadowing from large buildings, walls and other complex clutter actually enriches the location signature and increases the precision. As more capabilities and sensors are introduced in future handsets and as networks grow denser, pattern-matching technologies will continue to refine accuracy levels to less than 10 meters."

Brent Iadarola, research director for Frost & Sullivan's mobile and wireless communications, observes that pattern matching has proved good enough for compliance with emergency services regulations such as the US Federal Communications Commission E911 Phase II.

He adds: "The good news for operators implementing Phase II E911 solutions is that the billions of dollars required to implement these emergency services can be leveraged by US operators to produce commercial LBS."

LBS maps in three dimensions

There are several good reasons why most of the current map applications used in LBS are based on two-dimensional rather than 3D maps. Developers for mobile are usually constrained by factors that may include the cost and time of map data transfer to mobile devices, the visual limitations of the small screens on smartphones, the imprecision of location under various circumstances, and the lack of suitable map-creation models and software for suitable texturing and rendering in portable digital maps.

The full advent of 4G should change all that. Along with higher speed and better location, it should be accompanied by more efficient map modelling methods.

Four professors in fields of communications technology told TelecomsEurope how they envisaged the development of modelling methods "to meet the application requirements of personal navigation: small model size, high accuracy, and good visual appearance." (The gentlemen in question were Professors Chen Ruizhi, Zhang Jixian, Jarmo Takala and Wang Jianyu.)

They suggest that the current 3D city models designed for desktop applications could be modified for mobiles. They say applications for engineering design, environmental modelling and urban planning would be good to adapt for smartphones, making it possible "to render 3D scenes in real time, enriching contents and user experience for personal navigation and LBS."

3D visualisation requires a large amount of computing power. It is a challenging task to implement 3D visualisation in an embedded system such as a smartphone. The professors note that most of the difficulty lurks in the elements in the component layer, and especially in the visualisation engine. The high-level 3D visualisation engine architecture covers the interface layer, the core engine layer and the data management layer.

To overcome this and other technical obstacles, they suggest a model in which only a small subset of map data has to be loaded dynamically. Small model size can then be achieved by simplified object geometry and reduced texture resolution. The model accuracy can be controlled by extracting building outlines from a classified point cloud and overlapping with the final 3D model.

The net result of evolution in 3D map modelling should be more accurate maps that are downloaded in small portions, only 100 KB at a time, yet deliver a compelling visual effect complete with photo-realistic textures.

Enterprise and consumer LBS

For enterprises, future LBS applications may be more of what you're already using, but they will be bigger, better and faster.

According to Kyle McInnes, editor in chief of BlackBerry Cool, enterprise LBS will still focus on effective asset management. It will be applied to cut costs and provide insights into the business. McInnes says: "In tandem with technologies such as RFID, an organisation can track products, employees and customers."

As a BlackBerry man he comments that GPS-enabled BlackBerry devices make device management more cost effective, allowing IT administrators to find lost or stolen mobiles more easily and quickly. He adds: "Many organisations have custom-built location solutions for scenarios such as tracking fleets or red-flagging points in infrastructure."

Enterprise LBS has a lower media profile than consumer LBS. It does its job with an admirable absence of fuss and fanfare, unlike some of the glitz and froth that drips from the more gimmicky LBS apps.

However, there are many consumer LBS apps that serve extremely valuable purposes, as McInnes explains: "Location-based services like Loopt add a new dimension to social networking, and services like Poynt make finding relevant local information easier to discover."

He believes future LBS for consumers will increasingly turn to local content: "For consumers, the world around us will become increasingly small, with local content becoming more accessible. Everything from social networks to music services can benefit from serving local content."

Untargeted markets for location-based advertising

Ogilvy One and Acision have predicted that the proliferation of 3G networks and the advent of 4G will lead to significant growth in the mobile advertising. They also predict that by 2020 advertising will be far more people-centric, built around the delivery of far more personalised ads based on individual tastes and preferences.

Bite The Apple notes that 61 percent of the world's population currently uses cell phones. Right now, the mobile market represents a potential client base of about 4.3 billion people.

Yet only a small portion of this market is being targeted with full vigour. According to Bite The Apple, marketers and advertisers tend to put an undue amount of their money into advertising on the iPhone. For all its excellence, the iPhone holds only 11 percent of the market for mobile phones. "That leaves literally 89 percent of cell phone users that are not targeted," suggests Bite The Apple.

With 4G, advertisers will have vastly more opportunity to deliver content-rich multimedia advertising. However the current battle for dominance in mobile advertising may pan out, there is no doubt that device makers other than Apple will ensure that their hardware keeps pace with everything 4G can provide.

Winners and losers

TechCrunch published the predictions by Robert Scoble, widely followed news blogger, on who is currently positioned to score big or lose out as 4G adds its new competitive impetus to the mobile market. In summary, here's who he identified.

As potential winners, Scoble picked:

• Apple, because it owns Siri, which in Scoble's opinion is "the best UI for smartphones for interacting with the world around you"

• Google, because it already has so much location and scheduling data and is gathering more every day

• Facebook, because it already has so much data about people that it can use to present location information

• SimpleGeo, because it is becoming an arbitrage system for moving data in real time between all of these players

Scoble's likely losers are:

• Yahoo, because it hasn't figured out how to get its users to share much location data

• Microsoft, because "it is locked out of most of this new world"

• Gowalla, Brightkite and Whrrl, because they haven't made any moves to present malleable social graphs in the way Foursquare does

• Individual loyalty programmes, because after the popularity of the first such programmes, consumers will become yawningly unengaged

Topic: Emergency Response and Wireless Location Systems

The ability to locate wireless handsets and devices in indoor environments is particularly important since that is where most users originate voice and data calls.

The importance of accurate, timely and efficient location indoors continues to grow rapidly.

The industry is also witnessing progress in this arena.

Santa Clara, California-based Polaris Wireless says the advantage of its solution is that it works well in non line-of-sight, cluttered environments - with indoors being a particularly challenging environment for cellular location systems.

According to the company, Polaris Wireless Location Signatures (WLS), capitalises on complex obstructions and shadowing to improve location performance.

The company says its hybrid solution performs better than A-GPS alone in both indoor and complex environments. Also, the company's solution is 4G LTE ready with the hybrid solution supporting multiple cellular air interfaces (2G/3G/4G) in a single platform in support of carrier's multi-mode services and devices.

In order to learn more, TheWhereBusiness' correspondent Ritesh Gupta spoke to Manlio Allegra, president & CEO of Polaris Wireless. Allegra is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming People Tracking & Location USA conference, to be held in Chicago on June 22nd - 23rd.

Ritesh Gupta: What new trends has the industry witnessed as far as the technology for indoor location is concerned? What sort of progress is being made in this arena?

Manlio Allegra: The first industry trend is really more of a collective realisation that A-GPS doesn't reliably work for indoor use cases. A-GPS is superb at turn-by-turn navigation and other outdoor uses, but GPS' utility stops at the front door so to speak. Indoor has to be addressed by other technologies more suited to that environment. Wi-Fi comes to mind first regarding indoor location, because Wi-Fi access points are inside many buildings. But there's a fatal flaw in that logic, since Wi-Fi access points inside buildings cannot easily be mapped  - even though Wi-Fi signals may be measurable inside the building, the locations of the sources are unknown and practically unknowable.

That leaves network-based software location technologies, such as Polaris' Wireless Location Signatures (WLS) as the best alternative to handle the indoor spaces. WLS uses measurements from cellular network signals, as well as Wi-Fi if available, and determines location by pattern matching against a geo-referenced database. Cellular signals radiate from base stations at known locations and their signals penetrate well inside buildings, or the buildings may have picocell base stations inside them.

These cellular signals are reliable sources for accurate location inside buildings to support applications such as social networks, friend/child finder, coupons/advertisements and asset tracking, which require indoor location capabilities.

RG: Can you provide an insight into advantages and limitations of Wi-Fi access points as far as indoor navigation applications are concerned?

MA: Wi-Fi access points are inside many buildings, but Wi-Fi is an unlicensed band technology operating on unplanned, unmanaged, dynamic and even mobile/portable networks. It's nearly impossible to reverse-engineer the locations of Wi-Fi radiators inside of most buildings - some special buildings, yes, but not for the general problem of location inside all buildings. Deep inside buildings, in a significant percentage of cases, handsets do not measure "known" Wi-Fi signals and hence cannot be located based on them - resulting in Wi-Fi location dead zones. Even if Wi-Fi sources could be mapped, they change all the time with new access points coming on line, others being shut down and many frequently moving locations. For example, in offices and hotels, IT departments enable and disable Wi-Fi servers on a daily basis to support special needs and meetings.

The dynamic nature of Wi-Fi networks is on the verge of exploding exponentially as Wi-Fi hotspot cards (e.g. Sprint's MiFi), smartphone hotspots and USB dongle hotspots proliferate. People now literally carry Wi-Fi hotspots in their pockets as they move around on foot or in vehicles, in addition to many buses and trains having Wi-Fi services. Determining the locations of these mobile and portable Wi-Fi radiators is literally impossible. Operating in an unlicensed band means that Wi-Fi runs in the same spectrum as microwave ovens (!), Bluetooth, cordless phones and other higher power users (amateur radio operators are licensed to transmit with 1,500 watts in the exact same frequency band as Wi-Fi). This renders Wi-Fi unreliable for mission critical or safety of life applications due to the unpredictable interference.

Turning on a nearby microwave oven can wipe out local Wi-Fi coverage. Finally, Wi-Fi capability exists in only a fraction of phones and it must be enabled by the user. Due to the increased battery drain or concerns about security, many users disable Wi-Fi in their phones, or only enable it in selective locations (e.g. home or office). In short, Wi-Fi doesn't solve the indoor problem.

RG: Can you elaborate on how Wi-Fi measurements in conjunction with the Polaris WLS location solution enhance accuracy, reliability and yield-particularly in dense urban and indoor environments?

MA: Due to the dynamic and ever-changing nature of Wi-Fi networks, Wi-Fi location on its own is highly unreliable, many times resulting in gross errors. Wi-Fi alone falls short; however, Wi-Fi signals used in combination with more reliable cellular signals make perfect sense. The cellular signal information allows the confidence and certainty of the Wi-Fi measurements to be determined. If confidence in the Wi-Fi measurements is good based on comparison with cellular information, then they can contribute to accurate location. This avoids the gross outlier errors that occur with Wi-Fi alone and makes optimal use of the Wi-Fi measurements. Pattern matching approaches like Polaris WLS blend cellular (2G, 3G and 4G) information with Wi-Fi to extract the best possible location estimate, providing far better accuracy, reliability and yield compared to Wi-Fi alone. Where Wi-Fi fails to get a fix, WLS can use cellular signals, yet when Wi-Fi information is good it can improve the performance of the overall system compared to cellular signals alone.

RG: As far as accuracy is concerned, it is being highlighted that the existing algorithms for determining location are close to the limits of what's possible, and any big leaps aren't expected in this area based on Wi-Fi alone. To what extent could hybrid Wi-Fi + inertial systems significantly improve accuracy because of the complementary aspects of the two systems?

MA: Wi-Fi alone doesn't solve the indoor problem because of its unlicensed band, unplanned, unmanaged nature. Inertial systems, or more broadly sensors in phones, such as compasses, barometric pressure altimeters, gyros and accelerometers, can be extremely useful for contextual information but are not very reliable for extended indoor navigation determination. For example, a compass can tell that a user's phone is facing in the direction of a particular statue or work of art in a museum to trigger playing the appropriate recording of a description. Sensors in phones can be used for limited navigation based on a last known good fix, but the location from the sensors quickly drifts after a short distance or time. Sensors need frequent and reliable good fixes between which they can dead reckon navigate. Wi-Fi alone doesn't provide reliable fixes deep inside buildings where access points can't be mapped. Therefore, sensors really need to be combined with other location technologies, such as Polaris WLS, which rely on cellular signals emanating from base stations at known locations. This provides the basis to take maximum advantage of the sensors for contextual information, such as which direction users are facing, whether they are stationary or in motion, whether they are going up stairs, etc.

RG: What sort of integrated hybrid location solution will be an enabler for 4G applications?

MA: 4G is all about "all IP" networks which deliver the low latency, high bandwidth experience that users have grown accustomed to on the wired Internet connections. 4G devices will be "always connected", so they are always on the network, enabling applications that run in the background to mine fresh content while the user is simultaneously accessing content in the foreground, such as web surfing. The 4G environment sets the stage for pervasive location that is transparent and seamless to the user. "Always on" location means that users in 4G will not turn on specific LBS applications to get a fix, but instead the network will always know where the user is - assuming he/she opts in. If the network and handset applications know where the user is at all times, they can perform location-relevant functions and deliver location-aware content. In 4G, as the user moves his/her wireless device will be able to anticipate what the user is doing. If you are heading home, the thermostat automatically gets adjusted and lights turn on. If you're shopping in the mall, then meaningful coupons can be delivered at the right time and place.

This location capability integral in 4G requires high accuracy, low latency, consistent and pervasive location functions. A-GPS/GPS can't do that alone. Pinging GPS for location fixes every few minutes would quickly drain the battery and wouldn't work indoors. Wi-Fi can't do that on its own, since it doesn't solve the indoor problem. That's what software-based approaches like Polaris WLS can bring to the table- the ability to frequently and accurately locate all users, both outdoors and indoors.

RG: How do you assess the emergence of software-only location platforms that can quickly determine the location of any Wi-Fi enabled mobile device? What's your viewpoint on advanced hybrid positioning algorithms to combine each of the location sources to arrive at a single position with a high degree of confidence?

MA: For future location systems, hybrid approaches combining handset-based A-GPS and network-based approaches will be the norm. That's the only way to deliver reliable service across all environments. The network-based approaches will not be Wi-Fi alone though. Wi-Fi has its advantages in certain scenarios, but it doesn't solve the indoor problem and is subject to gross errors. Instead, network-based approaches like WLS pattern matching, which blend cellular plus Wi-Fi measurements, do solve the indoor problem and eliminate large errors. Hybrid systems blending A-GPS plus WLS create the best of both worlds, delivering handset-based advantages for outdoor and open sky conditions, while leveraging network-based advantages for cluttered urban and indoor settings.

In all cases, the location approaches should be tailored to the Quality of Service (QoS) needs of the application. Various applications have vastly different location performance needs, not just in terms of accuracy, but also time to fix and battery drain. Safety of life applications, like E911, require the highest QoS accuracy and necessitate exercising all available location methods to arrive at a single best fix, but may not require the shortest time to fix. Mission critical applications, such as enterprise apps, warrant triggering the right methods to get a reliable fix, but not necessarily everything the handset is capable of doing. Interactive LBS applications may thrive on fast time to fix, so may not want to trigger technologies like A-GPS which could require ten seconds or more to get a fix. Persistent applications which must have frequent location fixes, say every thirty seconds, need to be light on battery consumption and hence trigger only particular location methods. Best effort applications, such as downloading a map of the neighbourhood or determining local weather, do not need high accuracy, so rudimentary methods may suffice. The main point is that advanced hybrid algorithms trigger the right mix of technologies based on the required QoS, then optimally blend them to give location performance that meets the application's needs. Always triggering all the available location technologies is not the best approach.

RG: LBS are useful only when users' locations are known; it takes a blend of several technologies to reliably achieve this, adding to device cost and complexity. How do you expect this sector to shape up?

MA: For LBS users, accurate location increases the value of the application and improves the user experience. To achieve LBS-required accuracy, multiple location technologies are required to consistently and predictably serve this segment. Handset costs do not necessarily need to increase to achieve the predictable and consistent accuracy. However, a hybrid combination of A-GPS and a network-based technology are required as each complements one another in specific areas of an operator's network.

For example, A-GPS works very well in outdoor/clear sky environments, but either degrades or fails when indoors and in urban environments due to urban canyons. Polaris's network-based solution, WLS, perfectly complements A-GPS in the areas that it fails - indoor and urban environments. Being a software-based solution, there are no changes or additional costs to the device. In addition, WLS works across all network technologies and all devices in the market.

RG: What's on your agenda for this year?

MA: There is a lot of activity in the US and increased demand for our solution. With the planned LTE deployments, carriers will be operating three distinct network technologies. AT&T, for example, will be operating 2G GSM, 3G UMTS and 4G LTE. Our solution serves this multi-network challenge elegantly within a single product and provides carriers flexibility with regard to altering their network without regard to how it might impact their E911 or LBS systems.

We are also seeing major infrastructure suppliers bring location platforms to the market for E911 and LBS. Our WLS solution is being integrated with these platforms to provide a best in class solution, bringing together WLS with A-GPS for Tier 1 operators around the world.

This approach renders the network transparent to location applications, enabling service providers to support complex migrations from existing 2G and 3G to emerging 4G technologies. The end result is that operators will be able to deliver location applications and solutions with high accuracy in a cost-effective and seamless manner.

Adding Wi-Fi support to its Hybrid solution gives Polaris Wireless one more input in pinpointing the precise location of mobile devices.
Combined with the company's Wireless Location Signatures technology, A-GPS and other technologies, this enhanced hybrid approach leverages all available methods to ensure that location is determined as quickly and as accurately as possible across the range of environments.

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