Location-based services may defray hefty infrastructure costs

15 August 2001 News

Despite an FCC mandate to location-enable wireless handsets by October of this year for the USA, for most American consumers location-based technology may not come about until 2002. This is according to In-Stat which reports that even though location-enabled services have the potential to drive revenue growth from $37m in 2001 to more than $13 bn in 2005, the rollout of these types of technologies will be hindered by the high costs needed to deploy them.

It believes that costs will range from hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars, depending on the determinant technology chosen and the carrier's size and number of customers. In 2002, however, many carriers worldwide will be able to offer the ability to track mobile phones, providing not only emergency information, but also new wireless location services. Carriers are struggling to find ways that will allow them to leverage this new infrastructure to help mitigate its costs, says In-Stat.

The key to successful location-based services will be their ability to offer information that is location-sensitive, timely, and personalised for individual users. The analyst group says that for these services to make money, they have to offer users something more valuable than what they can get through a PC, through a standard voice telephone call, or through radio, TV and newspapers.

www.instat.com

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