My AU keitai doesn't have GPS -- no camera either and it barely manages
color -- but it supports cell based services so there is something on Au in
addition to GPS. I can find out nearby restaurants and see a map based on
my cell.
I haven't looked much into GPS because I don't have it but I think it is
not the conventional satellite based service but mixes triangulation with
GPS or some such trickery.
Martyn
Chas Sweeting
<charlie@skinnyhi To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
ppo.com> cc: (bcc: Martyn Williams/NEWS SERVICE/IDG)
Subject: (keitai-l) LBS Reprised (Location Based Services)
09/26/03 18:29
Please respond to
keitai-l
First of all, thank you very much to everybody who helped me
with information regarding LBS in Japan, a couple of weeks
back. My sincere apologies for not following-up earlier, not
through ingratitude I assure you but rather because I've been
swamped in so much information and data that it's really taken
a while to collate it into something meaningful. In fact,
finding that it is too much information for a single article,
I may be pushing this for a chapter within a wireless book.
Thanks to Ken Chang for the many URLs which looked exciting
but, alas, my kanji/kana never were any good and 10 years
after leaving Japan, are now at the primary school level (if that).
Anyway, a summary based on the comments from everybody who
chipped in (thanks again and sorry for not naming everybody
here) and a couple of follow-up comments:
1. KDDI Service
------------
"KDDI has had a GPS service for about 1 1/3 years now on its AU
service for 3G phones."
"Not all AU phones have GPS. It's one of a few major features
that AU promotes in its marketing literature, along with features
like camera, movie-player, Java, Brew, and high bandwidth."
"[Applications include] (ez-navigation) train route planning
service and the ability to brand photographs with GPS information"
Q: A complaint seems to be that it's quite slow (are we talking
minutes here?) which is inherent in GPS systems.
Doesn't the GPS line-of-sight issue mean that you don't get any
positioning information in subways or buildings ?
Any plans for A-GPS ?
2. DoCoMo/J-Phone
--------------
"DoCoMo and J-Phone use PDC cell id."
"DoCoMo also has DLP (DoCoMo location platform) based on GPS but
has no network support and is more expensive and far less popular."
"the response time is an issue, but accuracy is much more important.
cell id won't reliably tell you the nearest station because it can
easily have error of kilometers and give you wrong directions. "
Q: Surely there is very little latency in Cell-ID locationing ?
eg. 1-2 seconds ?
Q: The upside of cell-ID is that it relies no handset modifications
and can accomodate all legacy handsets. Does this not mean that
absolutely every DoCoMo customer can use location based services
now ? (or is it offered as an add-on, premium ?)
Q: Are we talking straight cell ID ? Can't they use Cell-ID + sector ?
Or even Cell-ID + Timing Advance or Signal Strength information
to narrow down the location a bit more ?
Also, shouldn't the cells in urban areas be extremely small (in
the region of 500m) ?
3. Services & Developers
---------------------
"LBS services incldue mapping/directions, games, shopping".
"... found i-area to be pretty useful; it generally saves me
going through two or three pages to choose my location when
I'm looking up something based on location".
Q: Can third party developers build LBS applications ?
ie. is there an API ?
Q: If so, just how is triggering (push) going to work ?
eg. taking the infamous 'coffee coupon' example (which
I don't necessarily think is a good idea, btw) :
you're walking down the street, pass within 50m
of a Starbucks and wham, you get a coffee coupon
flash on your phone.
Isn't this a huge waste of computing resources since
you need to track the location of every single phone
and check if it triggers any proximity apps ?
Q: Location-based billing
Would operators really be interested in offering, say,
reduced/cheaper calls to parties who are within a certain
distance of each other ?
Q: How are privacy issues being dealt with, if at all ?
4. The Business
------------
"Talking about the market, "useful" is same as "popular/usage".
though I don't have statistics at hand, DoCoMo and J-Phone's LBSS
traffic are very low."
Q: I don't suppose anybody does have any figures they could share
on this ? I tried NTT DoCoMo myself, but they were unsurprisingly
reluctant to share anything ...
Q: Is there any legislation expected (as in the US's E911) to
force location positioning on emergency calls in Japan ?
Sorry for so many additional questions - thank you again for all
your help,
Chas
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Received on Fri Sep 26 13:59:50 2003