techreports,
re: Qualcomm SnapTrack & e911 Wireless Tracking
I am embarrassed to say that ...
... the following clip I inserted into my response to you on SnapTrack that I dated as November 9 was in fact from November 2000, not 2001.
Yesterday (Nov, 9), Sprint PCS said it would use Qualcomm’s SnapTrack location chips inside its mobile handsets. Verizon Wireless has opted for a network-based plan from U.S. Wireless Corp. and possibly others. Cingular Wireless says it will deploy both network and phone-based options. - Wireless Week -
What's one year between threadmates (other than -1300 Naz points)? <g>
Ah well. I've included a recent article below on where things now stand.
Verizon has shifted to a handset based solution.
Verizon, Sprint & Nextel will deploy Assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS) technology.
AWS, Cingular, and VoiceStream and other US GSM carriers will deploy Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) location technology and all leading handset providers have announced that GSM handsets produced after Q4 2001 will be E-OTD compatible.
Land-based E-OTD and satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) are, for now, the key systems around which E-911 technologies are being developed. In general, CDMA operators are leading toward GPS and GSM carriers are moving in the E-OTD direction, including AT&T and VoiceStream. VoiceStream is currently testing the CPS E-OTD system in the Houston area.
The two systems use similar ways of calculating location, though with a major difference: GPS relies on satellites while E-OTD measures from mobile phone base stations. E-OTD is not as accurate as GPS, although its range - 50 to 125 meters - is within the boundaries set by the FCC's E-911 requirements and may be more accurate indoors, in subways, tunnels etc..
A key player on the E-OTD side is Cambridge Positioning Systems Limited (CPS), CPS is working with, or has licensed its E-OTD technology to, most of the network infrastructure providers, including Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks and Siemens. E-OTD technology is a 3GPP standardized solution.
Nokia currently offers E-OTD in their "mPosition" solution (which will be used by AWS & Cingular) but that solution will supposedly support A-GPS in the future. Nokia recently invested in a SiRF Technology (Santa Clara, CA) who offers A-GPRS chipsets and solutions.
One thing that is not clear to me is whether or not a carrier who adopts SnapTrack A-GPRS - Sprint PCS or Verizon, lets say - needs to have A-GPS handsets enabled with a specific A-GPS chipset or whether their is a cdma standard which would allow other standards compliant chipsets to be used in the network (and I'm assuming their are A-GPS standards).
Updated e911 article here:
>> Wireless Tracking on Hold
Alex Daniels
Washington Techway
November 8, 2001
The wireless industry has had five years' notice to deploy technology to pinpoint the location of emergency calls from mobile phones. But on Oct. 5, the Federal Communications Commission bowed to the nation's wireless powerhouses and extended the deadline for e911 implementation.
Why the Delay?
According to the industry, more time is needed because wireless carriers are shifting from network-based tracking systems, which use devices on cell sites to triangulate a caller's position, to handset-based approaches. The new systems use satellite global positioning system chips in mobile phones. The carriers say they need more time to test the GPS technology.
Carriers were supposed to start introducing phones with e911 chips, which would allow emergency dispatchers to locate distressed callers, on Oct. 1. The FCC's extension was granted to five major operators that handle more than 75 percent of the nation's wireless calls - A&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless. Each of the carriers were granted different schedules for e911 rollout. Smaller companies have been given until the end of November to ask for similar extensions.
Each carrier must begin providing upgraded phones to a certain percentage of subscribers - varying by carrier - beginning in the middle of 2002. By the end of 2005, all of the carriers must have 95 percent of their users outfitted with the phones.
Critics of the delay aren't happy. Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.,), a Silicon Valley legislator who had urged the FCC to hold to its original time frame for e911 deployment, says the terrorist attacks on the United States "upped the ante on the importance of location detection technology in crisis situations."
But industry representatives say it's doubtful an e911 system would have helped locate survivors in the World Trade Center, given the enormity of the attack. "I don't think this technology would have made any difference at all," says John Johnson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless.
Verizon Wireless had originally planned to install the old, network-based system. The company has components in place in Chicago, St. Louis and Houston. But Verizon Wireless says hardware manufacturers and software vendors were slow to deliver technology, and it wasn't reliable enough.
"The technology worked well in densely populated areas, but did not live up to FCC specifications in more rural areas," Johnson says.
Verizon has switched to a handset system, and says it will start introducing new phones with GPS chips next month.
But not everyone agrees with Verizon Wireless' claims.
"Arguments that systems aren't available on time and more time is needed simply don't match up with the facts," says George Marble, vice president of marketing at the Grayson Wireless in Reston.
Grayson, a division of Allen Telecom, has been manufacturing its system for about a year. Marble says it would cost operators a one-time charge of $20 per subscriber to implement the system, which he insists exceeds FCC requirements in rural and urban areas. Handset systems, says Marble, have yet to be thoroughly tested."It's absolutely an unknown quantity," he says. <<
- Eric - |
