Thanks for your interest in Cell-Loc.
For everyone else's information, Wi-LAN holds 1.8 million shares of Cell-Loc Inc. Cell-Loc has developed a system for the location of cellular telephones according to the FCC E911 ruling which requires all cellular operators to locate all phones dialing 911 by October 31, 2001. Cell-Loc's shares are listed on the ASE under the symbol CLQ.
The following response is based on my best knowledge and is not based on insider information. Please check the accuracy of it against other available information.
Technor has acquired the rights to a technology for positioning GSM cellular phones from Wasp International, a South African Company that has developed the technology to recover stolen vehicles. The technology consists of a GSM terminal that provides GSM positioning by receiving GSM signals from cellular Base Stations assuming that the Base Stations are synchronized. Given that the GSM Base Stations are not synchronized, the accuracy of the system is several hundered meters. The technology does not locate cellular phones. You are required to install the GSM terminal into your vehicle in order to locate it. It is not GPS-based. It is not network-based. It is terminal-based. This effectively eliminates the E911 market which is a major market today in North America, with a promise to become a major market worldwide.
This also eliminates the security market such as crime prevention (kidnapping, carjacking, etc.) where tracking and interception of individual cellular phones is a must.
Finally, given that the GSM terminal needs to relay its positional information back to some monitoring center, it requires a modem. This implies airtime charges and extra hardware.
In Cell-Loc's system, this is not the case since Cell-Loc's system can locate any existing cellular telephone (with an accuracy below 100m) by receiving signals transmitted by the cellular phone without a need for either a modem or airtime charges. This feature offers a major advantage to Cell-Loc's system over both handset-based and terminal-based location systems since a cellular phone, that is locatable by the Cell-Loc's system, can be miniaturized (i.e. it can be hidden in a watch), it can be inexpensive ($5 to $10) since there is no need to have a receiver, and will use very little power (i.e. the life of its battery can be extended significantly).
I hope this answers your question. |
