marilyn,while i agree you can not hurt yourself buying under 4, i do not see GEMS taking a rocket ride this year. There 2way product is bulky,@ctivelink-i see very little sales of unattractive wireless products,and i know they had to shild the HAND product to make it work with the @ctivelink there by passing up sales to all the HANDs that are presently out there.Not to mention that GEMS module is bulky and unattractive(this really pisses me off,slim sells and GEMS should know this)The killer app is supposedly GPS. Well i think GEMS will be late here also.
Something to watch over you
Your cellphone is a homing beacon, and soon it will be tracking your every move
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 1/22/2001
t's like something from an old spy movie: a portable device that constantly beams your location to friend or foe, ensuring that somebody always knows where you are.
Nowadays, millions of us carry such devices around with us, in the form of cellphones. Each one of them is a little homing beacon, broadcasting the location of the user. But until recently, this valuable feature was used for little more than billing purposes.
That's about to change, in a big way. Cellphone companies will soon deploy new systems that will identify a caller's location to within a few hundred feet. With the new systems, police and paramedics will be able to respond quickly to emergency calls from cellphones.
But the same technology could also help a driver locate the nearest Japanese restaurant. A cellphone could automatically display the local weather report as it's carried from city to city. Or it could ring as a shopper strolls past a department store to notify her of the bargains inside. Entrepreneurs hope to cash in with a host of customized services, depending on the consumer's location.
''You had to go to the Internet to find information,'' said Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. ''Now the information can come to you.''
Simply knowing one's location, and the best way to get someplace else, might not seem like big business. But the research firm Allied Business Intelligence estimates the market for such services will exceed $40 billion in five years.
One reason for the expected boom is a 1996 decision by the Federal Communications Commission requiring that all cellphones provide automatic location data. As cellphones have caught on, a growing number of people began using them to place 911 emergency calls. In virtually the entire country, landline telephone systems use automated systems that instantly trace 911 calls and provide location data to emergency workers. Even if the caller is too badly injured or confused to provide an address, he can be found.
But the cellphone user had no such protection. Cellular systems have always tracked the general location of any phones that are switched on, so that incoming calls may be routed to them and the user can be accurately billed. But there was no system for automatically supplying this data to the authorities.
With so many Americans beginning to rely on cellphones, the FCC decided that something had to change. The agency launched a two-stage campaign to solve the problem. In the first phase, already complete, cell systems were ordered to provide emergency workers with the caller's phone number and the location of the cell from which the call came. That's an improvement, but a cell can cover several square miles.
We're now in the second phase, and cellphone companies are under orders to do much better. By the time it's complete in 2005, all the nation's cellphone systems must be able to locate two-thirds of callers to within 100 meters or better, and 95 percent to within 300 meters or better.
How much better? It depends, in part, on the technology used. There are two basic ways to pinpoint the source of cellphone calls. One involves the use of radio-location methods like triangulation. That's where a radio signal is received at three or more points. By measuring the direction of the signal at each reception point, it's possible to calculate the source of the signal.
The other approach involves the use of the 24 Global Positioning System satellites placed in orbit by the US military. Cellphones with built-in GPS receivers can relay their location automatically when the user places a 911 call. GPS is a more accurate technique than triangulation, and therefore must meet tougher government standards. These systems must locate two-thirds of callers to within 50 meters and 95 percent of them to within 150 meters.
TruePosition Inc. of King of Prussia, Pa., is one of the top competitors in triangulation-type systems. TruePosition's gear is under consideration by Verizon Wireless, the nation's largest wireless phone provider.
''We just completed a test with Verizon in Manhattan, which is probably the worst place for radio propagation in the country,'' said TruePosition spokesman Michael Amarosa. ''We were very, very successful.''
Indeed, Verizon spokeswoman Andrea Linskey said the TruePosition system located cellphone users with an accuracy of 80 meters - around 260 feet. That's better than the law demands from a triangulation system.
''Are you going to pinpoint them in the back bedroom of 123 First Street? Probably not,'' Amarosa said.
But Amarosa says this level of accuracy is good enough for cops and firefighters, who can get to the general area quickly and then pin down the precise location of the trouble.
Amarosa declined to provide data on the cost of his system. But to convert the entire country to triangulation could well cost hundreds of millions. That's because the necessary gear must be installed at every cell in the system.
Boston patent attorney Robert Tendler says he's got a better idea. His Fonefinder GPS cellphone uses satellite data to keep tabs on its location. At the touch of a special red button, the phone barks ''Mayday! Mayday!'' in an electronic voice, then rattles off latitude and longitude numbers, followed by the same information delivered in electronic beeps.
The software included with Tendler's system translates the beeps, and then brings up a computerized map that shows the street location of the coordinates.
''Damn thing works like gangbusters,'' Tendler boasted.
Tendler says he's gotten some interest from Colorado-based Qwest Wireless, but that company wouldn't confirm or deny any involvement with Tendler. Besides, all GPS systems suffer from a major drawback - customers will have to buy new phones. A triangulation-based system works with existing phones.
The most successful of the GPS phone locator firms is SnapTrack, a company owned by Qualcomm Inc., which makes the underlying technology found in millions of cellphones. Sprint PCS, a nationwide digital wireless system, says it'll standardize on the SnapTrack technology to provide location data. SnapTrack is actually a hybrid system, requiring special circuits at the cell sites and inside the phones. So customers will still have to buy new phones, while the cellphone service will have to upgrade its receiving equipment.
Whatever the method selected, it opens the door to many other services having nothing to do with emergency services. Cellphone companies could use incoming signals to constantly monitor the location of their customers. This possibility alarmed privacy advocates and members of Congress. A federal law enacted in 1999 bars cellphone companies from giving out location information on their customers for non-emergency purposes, unless the customer has given permission.
That's fine with Larson of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, who thinks there are plenty of commercial applications that consumers will cheerfully embrace, as long as they know their privacy is secure.
''We envision an opt-in principle here,'' said Larson, ''something where the consumer is actively deciding to take part in the system.''
For instance, a traveler with an Internet-enabled phone might sign up for a free service from a national fast-food chain. The phone would automatically direct him to the nearest restaurant, complete with instructions on how to get there from the user's present location. The fast-food company treats the service as a form of advertising, paying a fee to the cellphone company, which in turn uses the money to cover the cost of the locator service.
These services aren't available in the United States yet. But
Orange Communications SA, a Swiss cellphone company, is launching such a service this year, using software created by Colorado-based SignalSoft Corp.
And consumers won't be the only targets for these new services. Some trucking companies use complex and costly satellite systems to track vehicles on the road. Once cellphone locator gear is in place, they'll be able to accomplish the same goal merely by putting a phone in every truck and subscribing to a tracking service offered by the cellphone company.
Having a device that tracks your every move seems rather scary when it happens in the movies. But the phone companies hope that once we get a taste of location-based services, they'll seem as indispensable as cellphones.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached by e-mail at bray@globe.com.
This story ran on page C01 of the Boston Globe on 1/22/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. |
