It's All About Location

Baldwin Louie — Thu, 02 Aug 2001 15:00:00 -0700

Location-based wireless technology is one of the more promising - and controversial - segments of the mobile industry, offering services ranging from Enhanced 911 (E-911), which will allow emergency personnel to precisely locate cellular 911 callers, to the ability to market to consumers on their wireless phones.

Two recent developments, however, demonstrate some of the obstacles that wireless location-based technology must get past before becoming ubiquitous: Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellular carrier, joined other celcos last week in requesting a deadline extension from the FCC for implementing E-911 services. And Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., proposed a location-privacy law earlier this month that would limit carriers' ability to profit from the technology.

The FCC, which has been working to improve the wireless industry's emergency 911 systems since 1996, has set an Oct. 1 deadline for carriers to provide data that can pinpoint a caller's location within 400 feet. But some think that carriers have been dragging their feet in implementing E-911. At a June FCC hearing, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., spoke out against the industry for spending $16.8 billion on additional wireless spectrum for 3G wireless services while claiming an inability to meet safety requirements by the deadline.

The carriers were given a choice of implementing network-based location systems - which require an upgrade of hardware and software at all of a carrier's cell sites - or handset-based systems, which require the addition of global-positioning technology to all handsets and means that all users have to upgrade their phones.

When Verizon Wireless asked for an extension on the deadline, it joined a growing list of companies, including Sprint PCS, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, Nextel and VoiceStream, that have already done so. A company statement read: "Only now are technically feasible, complete solutions starting to become available, but this is not in time for Verizon Wireless, or it believes any other wireless carrier, to meet the deadlines in the rules."

Verizon is now indicating it will use a combined network and handset solution but that it doesn't plan to sell the handsets equipped for location tracking until December. (According to Cahners In-Stat, a shortage of GPS chips needed for location technology in new phones will delay most carriers who chose the handset option.)

Virtually no one argues against the need for providing cellular location information to emergency agencies, but when the talk moves to other kinds of location-based services, privacy advocates grow concerned.

Edwards' wireless privacy bill, the Location Privacy Protection Act (S. 1164), is an attempt to regulate carriers' ability to sell users' location-tracking information to marketers by requiring wireless service providers to notify their customers when collecting location information, essentially creating an "opt-in" system for location-based services.

Location-technology vendors have seen this coming, and they are adapting their systems to accommodate similar restrictions. For example, TeleCommunication Systems, a leading location-technology vendor, recently added a privacy feature to its Xypoint Location Platform, which allows users to control how their location information is used. With TCS' system, you can imagine a scenario where subscribers can indicate that only a specific roadside-assistance company can locate them, or that an employer can locate them only between the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If you're wondering when to expect widespread location-based services, the answer seems to be taking shape: not anytime soon.

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It's All About Location