TruePosition, Inc., a leading provider of wireless location
technologies and solutions and a subsidiary of Liberty Media
Corporation, today announced the findings of a significant research
study undertaken with IDC. The research reveals clear opportunities for
location based services in the United States.
"Location based services have been slow to take off in the United
States, but these research findings clearly show that the US market is
getting good traction," said Robert Morrison, Senior Vice President of
Market and Business Development. "Due to the rise in navigation systems
in cars and websites that provide directions and points of interest,
both consumers and enterprises in the US are now grasping the concept
of location based services, and they have very specific ideas about how
they should work."
The study asked consumers and enterprises in the US exactly what
they want and expect from the following location based services: Child
Monitoring, Medical and Senior Citizen Monitoring, Pet Tracking,
Navigation, Traffic, Stolen Vehicle Recovery, Social Networking, Local
Search, Fleet Tracking, and Workforce Management.
Some of the highlights of the IDC research include:
Navigation
When selecting the features that were most important to mobile
navigation services, people in the US ranked the ability to use the
service in dense metropolitan areas first. The ability to use the
service nationwide was second and re-routing was the third feature.
Mobile Local Search
One key outcome revealed that more than half of consumers are
receptive to advertisement-sponsored local search services, which could
prove to be a significant new source of revenue for mobile operators.
Local search on cell phones looks to be the LBS low hanging fruit for
the wireless operator community, but only if they can agree a free
advertising based business model. Only 25% US would consider paying for
the service.
Social Networking
Security looks to be a key factor in determining whether
location-enabled mobile social networking will take off. Consumers are
unlikely to subscribe to these types of services unless service
accessibility can be limited to authorized users and a process is in
place to keep out strangers.
Family Monitoring
Anxious parents seeking peace of mind look to be an important
market for LBS as 35% of respondents admitted to being likely or very
likely to subscribe to child locator services in the next 12 months.
Overall, consumers revealed that they were extremely receptive to
location based services, providing they perform at the optimum levels
-- essentially working wherever and whenever their mobile phone worked.
The majority of the respondents wanted the services to work in several
different types of environments (outdoors, indoors and in vehicles),
desired sub-50 meter accuracy, and required a sub-15 second response
time.
Enterprise Services
From an enterprise perspective, LBS user preferences between the
three geographies were remarkably similar. Workforce management and
fleet tracking services were highlighted as the most prevalent uses of
LBS by businesses. Respondents to the survey viewed productivity
improvements (74% in the US) and cost savings (69% in the US) as the
key benefits. Also, businesses ranked the safety and security of its
workers as the most important feature, with ease of implementation
coming in at a close second.
Overall, the performance levels for enterprise services echoed the
consumer findings with end-users consistently requesting premium
performance in terms of accuracy, reliability and response times.
"The data TruePosition and IDC uncovered together is truly
compelling," stated Scott Ellison, Vice President of Wireless and
Mobile Communications at IDC. "As location-based services continue to
gain momentum, service providers will need to better understand their
customers' requirements for these services. This research study
certainly is at the forefront of that effort."
"New regulatory pressure and increasing subscriber demand will
continue to lay down the accuracy gauntlet for LBS. This study clearly
indicates that our potential consumer and business customers will
accept nothing short of a perfectly performing, accurate service,"
added Morrison. "TruePosition is dedicated to ensuring that our
location based services, and the underlying positioning technologies
that power them, are in line with end-user expectations."
Additional findings and research methodology can be found in the
IDC White Paper sponsored by TruePosition, "Opportunities for Location
Based Services in Consumer and Enterprise Markets," Doc #209059,
October 2007.
About TruePosition
TruePosition is dedicated to the development and implementation of
advanced wireless location products, services and devices, providing
complete solutions to support the wireless location needs of the global
marketplace. In addition to providing industry leading core location
technologies, TruePosition supports all levels of the wireless location
value chain to offer turnkey solutions.
TruePosition's foundation was built on the development of advanced
location systems, which include handset, network and hybrid location
solutions. Today, TruePosition can offer hybrid location systems that
incorporate Cell ID, Enhanced Cell ID, Uplink Time Difference of
Arrival, Angle of Arrival, and Assisted GPS to power the next
generation of location- based services. TruePosition is a subsidiary of
Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to its Liberty Capital
Group .
For more information, visit www.trueposition.com.