Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Location-Based Services Market Poised For Growth April 27, 2004 (6:17 p.m. EST)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:08:39 -0400

Location-Based Services Market Poised For Growth April 27, 2004 (6:17
p.m. EST)
By Antone Gonsalves, TechWeb News

The market for location-based cellular services that failed to meet the
expectations set during the late '90s tech boom is poised to make a
comeback, a research firm said Tuesday.

Services that would deliver traffic info and store and restaurant
locations based on where a cellular subscriber is standing have failed
to take off primarily due to technical problems, ABI Research said.

The slow start, however, may be over in light of pending U.S. and
European legislation requiring carriers to have technology that could
locate a subscriber making an emergency call, the analyst firm said.
Such technology could easily be leveraged for commercial use as well.

Technical problems, however, remain, although diminishing through
innovation.

Technology that uses Global Position System satellites is the least
expensive method for carriers, but the systems are unable to find a
cellular subscriber in a building. A more reliable, but expensive,
option is to use technology that can locate a subscriber by using the
cellular infrastructure to triangulate a caller's location.

Companies such as SnapTrack and Global Locate are developing equipment
that combines data from both technologies to provide a system more
reliable than GPS, but less costly than its alternative, ABI said.

In Asia, particularly South Korea and Japan, location-based services
have sold well because consumers in both countries are more tolerant, in
general, with technology's shortcomings, and have a greater need for the
service, ABI analyst Edward Rerisi said.
In Tokyo, for example, location-based services are used to find places
in a city where address listings and street names can be extremely
confusing to visitors.

"The Japanese and Koreans are often at the forefront of cellular
technology," Rerisi said. "But the bottom line on location-based
services is they need it, so they're more tolerant."

In the U.S., location-based services is catching hold first among small
businesses.  Dispatchers for limousine and delivery services, for
example, are using the technology to track drivers, who only need to
carry a cellular phone. Nextel Communications is an example of a carrier
that is doing relatively well in the market, Rerisi said.

Large trucking firms and regional bus lines, on the other hand, are
using more advanced, and more expensive, technology to track their
fleets. So-called "telematics services" usually require hardware on the
vehicle, and advanced hardware and software at the dispatcher's
location.

Worldwide revenue from location-based services is expected to top $3.6
billion by end of the decade from $500 million today, ABI said.
Telematics services revenues is expected to exceed $5 billion by 2009
from $1.5 billion last year.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20040427S0012
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