One location-based service I think many companies will be working hard on in 2009 is indoor positioning. Traditionally it’s been tough to acquire a GPS fix inside buildings, in urban canyons, or in densely forested areas because the satellite signal isn’t strong enough to penetrate walls, floors, etc. Nokia is one company that comes to mind. It’s been working on indoor positioning technology that doesn’t use GPS for awhile now, instead finding your position by latching into your WLAN network and triangulating location.
Rosum is the latest company to attract attention. Its technology is able to acquire a location fix by tying into television signals. Not only can it do this by triangulating TV towers, but with femtocells as well. Femtocells connect to your home broadband network and act as a miniature cellular tower. Their purpose is to improve coverage and also take some of the strain off of major wireless networks.
But each femtocell is equipped with a GPS receiver. Why? Mainly so that service providers know that each femtocell is being used in a geographical location where the provider owns wireless spectrum. Using it outside of owned areas would be infringing on another provider’s spectrum license; a big no-no.
Back to Rosum. The important point to consider with femtocells is that they won’t be bought if they have trouble acquired a satellite fix indoors. Rosum can solve this problem by acquiring a location by tapping into higher-power TV signals that don’t have as much trouble penetrating walls. And, the company says the location accuracy is equal to that of an assisted GPS system.
The company has already announced a femtocell agreement with 2Wire, a company that makes routers and other electronic equipment, but it says it is in talks with pretty well all femtocell companies.
It’ll be interesting to see if this takes off. Verizon and AT&T have both announced femtocells this year, but I haven’t heard anything regarding the GPS accuracy of either yet.
via ars technica
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