Nicely written article and very informative on the concept (and current limitations) of LBS.
However since the article is written by the CEO of one of the technologies presented it isn't really a surprise that Polaris Wireless technology is cited as the most accurate an reliable of the alternative wireless location systems.
steveray
· 1 year ago
Great informative article. I'm not sure that fidelity/accuracy for a handset is that important though for most applications. I mainly use the existing location/map integrations in combination with search, not to navigate a car etc. I only need to know roughly where I am (zip code level would get me 80% there). ie. searching for "pizza", its ok if it shows me results within a few block radius.
Elibom
· 1 year ago
It is a nice article which presents some state of art as well as problems of mobile LBS. In my understanding, the challenges to mobile LBS are more than the positioning technologies, though they are very critical to the LBS performance. For example, even the simple question how to make the user location data accessible to third parties is not that easy to be answered. Especially in a roaming scenario.
Another interesting mobile LBS overview I can share is the tutorial presented in IEEE ICC 2008. It can be found at
Interesting article. I was actually looking around the other day for something similar and come across an article which discussed why LBS may very well not be the future. No idea whether you are are interested in it.
Polaris' solution to geolocation may be good, but at least some of the claims Manlio uses to deride his competition may be inaccurate and misleading.
Regarding WiFi positioning and the service Skyhook provides, Manlio discounts coverage and accuracy based on the following statements: "How many times have you tried to log onto the Internet via a public WiFi network and couldn’t receive a strong signal? How many times have you gone into a building and couldn’t even get a WiFi signal?"
My understanding of Skyhook's technology and service is that it is not limited to what you see when you try to connect your laptop to a hot spot. Manlio does not take into account that technologies used to sniff WiFi signals can divine much information from signals too weak for your laptop to deem relevant for display. They also use router mac addresses and don't need to rely on access point names for recognition.
Generally a good article aside from this being a white paper for Polaris. However, the importance of accuracy and precision depend on the application. For example, accuracy to a few meters may be irrelevant for metr0-targeted advertising and may be all that's necessary because there isn't ad inventory block-by-block. Sure, you could give someone a coupon for a store they are standing next to, but can you? Also there's a cost-benefit trade off for any infrastructure. Skyhook Wireless (mentioned above and in which I am an investor) has extremely low infrastructure costs because the public provides the beacons. At the other extreme, satellites can cost billions. Again, the investment depends on the application. (And yes, se419's comment is correct not only does one not need as strong a signal for Skyhook's technology to work but the device doesn't have to log on to the wifi network either....)
Lewis Gersh
· 1 year ago
Interesting article and points on strengths and weaknesses with LBS. At our fund, we have found that from and advertising and transaction processing services perspective, the best results so far are using coupons to area locations with a call to action. Getting to within a few blocks is usually good enough, especially if you are tying to time of day and typical user activity based on location. It' s all about scaling volume, and the highest concentrations of users in densely populated areas are critical (urban home or work, and school). If the application utilizing a LBS functionality has a consumer facing Web presence, which is often the case, the consumer's registration information can close the gap to "back up" the several block area with their actual address and provide additional value as to their psychographic profile of being at home, work or school. This won't solve for a consumer "on the go", which is a whole other market and very much day-of-the-week dependent - consumers during the week spend most of their "purchasing" time in and around the same exact locations; weekends are much more on-the-go LBS driven without a back up of Web site registration to utilize.
Andrew Graham
· 1 year ago
As an experienced LBS developer with aGPS application deployments onVerizon Wireless, Sprint, Alltel and others we are seeing faster initial acquisitions and associated consumer satisfaction than those quoted in the article (typically 5 - 20 secs).
It's true that unfiltered aGPS readings suffer from signal reflection in urban settings and look like a scatter plot even in ideal conditions.
However, we take MS based pings every 2-5 seconds to build accurate path traces (running, walking, cycling) with data conditioning that produces results within +/- 2% of actual. Here's an example from the NY Marathon.
The biggest issue I see is with building penetration where hybrid approaches may help. References to aGPS being "overhyped" are a bit of a mischaracterization based on our experience with accuracy sensitive applications and the user experience of subscribing consumers.
where I pose the question Has Google won the location battle already?
shrirang
· 1 year ago
Great Article by Manlio on LBS. I guess the important part is to commercialize it, esp in areas where there is no mandate by the government to have Location determined.
Local Coupons probably is very well suited for commercialization. Buddy finder has had a hype around it, but will have to wait and see. So cellfire and polaris solutions together can become a good combo.
Anon imous
· 1 year ago
The Polaris Wireless solution has several drawbacks including poor accuracy which can only be as good as the database which in turn depends on continuous data collection and calibration and also has problems with locating power controlled CDMA based terminals. In short, the accuracy will never come close to what AGPS can provide. GPS companies are increasingly adopting INS and DR techniques for uninterrupted location in urban areas. The 50m claim here is simply what you would expect from the CEO based on performance at select testbeds. In reality, the accuracy is of the order of several hundred meters and cannot be relied on for navigation purposes. Indoor positioning has been talked about for several years now and would be a nightmare to implement given the need to create a database that includes signal strength vectors from every floor at extremely small grid spacing. In short, WLS is good for small carriers that are looking for cheap software based solutions but can never hope to upsatge or complement GPS and AGPS solutions.
xiaodi
· 1 year ago
I completely agree with Anon imous. The 50m accuracy is the theoritical best the WLS model can achieve based on the statistical nature of the model and the PSD database (20m by 20m grid resolution). It maybe cheap to deploy (pure software based), but it is very expensive to maintain. You need to constantly remeasure and calibrate the PSD database. Based on my experience of the WLS, it accuracy is around 200m- 1000m.
Marty Feuerstein
· 1 year ago
The previous post from "Anon imous" brings to mind the fact that every location technology has pros and cons. That's why hybrid approaches combining different technologies are so powerful. GPS and A-GPS are wonderful technologies and in open-sky conditions, their accuracy is hard to beat. But for all practical purposes GPS/A-GPS doesn't work indoors, where much of the wireless usage is concentrated these days. That creates the need for complementary technologies to drive location coverage indoors and into urban canyons. In those challenging areas, other technologies can and do perform better than GPS/A-GPS --- those are exactly the areas where network-based approaches like Polaris's work best because the cellular network base station densities are high. Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and Dead Reckoning (DR) are technologies that can be used in high-end devices or in-vehicle navigation systems, but the cost, size and battery drain prohibit their mass adoption on cell phones, and more importantly they don't solve the indoor problem where even $1000+ INS/DR systems don't perform well.
To correct some misunderstandings in that post, the Polaris system does work for locating CDMA terminals, whether they are using UMTS/WCDMA or CDMA2000. The CDMA measurements used for location are from pilot control channels, which are not power controlled (they are broadcast at constant transmit power). The claimed 50 meter accuracy at 67th percentile for urban environments comes from multiple independent blind tests conducted by large wireless service providers in places like New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, London and Toronto.
Massimo Allegra
· 1 year ago
Ciao Manlio, presumo tu sia mio cugino, io sono Massimo figlio di zio Piero. Se sei realmente tu mi farebbe veramente piacere scambiare due chiacchiere, anche se solo via email. Un abbraccio Massimo Allegra
All Comments
However since the article is written by the CEO of one of the technologies presented it isn't really a surprise that Polaris Wireless technology is cited as the most accurate an reliable of the alternative wireless location systems.
Another interesting mobile LBS overview I can share is the tutorial presented in IEEE ICC 2008. It can be found at
http://to.swang.googlepages.com/lbs
http://www.timdavis.com.au/2008/06/18/are-locat...
Regarding WiFi positioning and the service Skyhook provides, Manlio discounts coverage and accuracy based on the following statements:
"How many times have you tried to log onto the Internet via a public WiFi network and couldn’t receive a strong signal? How many times have you gone into a building and couldn’t even get a WiFi signal?"
My understanding of Skyhook's technology and service is that it is not limited to what you see when you try to connect your laptop to a hot spot. Manlio does not take into account that technologies used to sniff WiFi signals can divine much information from signals too weak for your laptop to deem relevant for display. They also use router mac addresses and don't need to rely on access point names for recognition.
For a little more on how WiFi positioning works there's a video of Skyhook's Ryan Sarver at the following link:
http://www.endpointenvironmental.com/W2MSN_meet...
It's true that unfiltered aGPS readings suffer from signal reflection in urban settings and look like a scatter plot even in ideal conditions.
However, we take MS based pings every 2-5 seconds to build accurate path traces (running, walking, cycling) with data conditioning that produces results within +/- 2% of actual. Here's an example from the NY Marathon.
http://bimactive.com/ba/ui/route_detail.php?f_r...
The biggest issue I see is with building penetration where hybrid approaches may help. References to aGPS being "overhyped" are a bit of a mischaracterization based on our experience with accuracy sensitive applications and the user experience of subscribing consumers.
Andy
See http://www.andrewgrill.com/blog/index.php/2008/...
where I pose the question Has Google won the location battle already?
Local Coupons probably is very well suited for commercialization. Buddy finder has had a hype around it, but will have to wait and see. So cellfire and polaris solutions together can become a good combo.
To correct some misunderstandings in that post, the Polaris system does work for locating CDMA terminals, whether they are using UMTS/WCDMA or CDMA2000. The CDMA measurements used for location are from pilot control channels, which are not power controlled (they are broadcast at constant transmit power). The claimed 50 meter accuracy at 67th percentile for urban environments comes from multiple independent blind tests conducted by large wireless service providers in places like New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, London and Toronto.
Se sei realmente tu mi farebbe veramente piacere scambiare due chiacchiere, anche se solo via email.
Un abbraccio
Massimo Allegra