Mobile Location Services

2008-06-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

The role of Mobile Location Services in the potential mobile consumer/business services has not be clear. This largely explained why mobile LBS has yet taken off, even though there have been tons of discussions everywhere. Here are some examples.

Controversy I: We may not need mobile LBS that much.

Before I really go to the details. Let me give a review of one simple concept and theory here, which are called “Home Range Concept” and “Traffic Pattern Theory”.

Home Range Concept. It is a concept that can be traced back to a publication in 1943 by W. H. Burt, who constructed maps delineating the spatial extent or outside boundary of an animal’s movement during the course of its everyday activities.

Traffic Pattern Theory. A people’s daily activity pattern is pretty regular, which comprises of several major events, such as school, work, home, shopping.

As I remember, a technical explanation of traffic pattern theory can be found in a report by Stefan Schonfelder, STRC 2001.

http://www.strc.ch/schoenfe.pdf

What happened here is if you are looking at the traffic pattern of a person, saying a full-time employed, 45 years, car, 3-person-household, one child, the regular activity route is so LIMITED. So, does this mean …

Controversy II

One example here.

The US VZW also provides lots of mobile location-based services. One of them is called navigation services. it is about $5+ per month. However, as you know, the GPS service itself is free to public and a GPS receiver is as low as $200 with a pretty decent screen and airtime charge. (More decent than a mobile phone.) It is really difficult for me to choose the VZW navigation service instead of buying a GPS receiver. On the other hand, the VZW GPS is a A-GPS/AFLT based hybrid solution under the tight control of the operator. If you travel out of the VZW network coverage, you will be out of luck. However, with a standalone GPS receiver, you have no problem

One of the best mobile LBS introduction documents I have read is

http://to.swang.googlepages.com/lbs