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Response to WDN Article on positioning technology developed by SnapTrack/Qualcomm
Posted by WirelessDevNet, November 06, 2001
Last month, Nicki Hayes, WDN's European correspondent, shared her views on the FCC mandate regarding
Phase II e911 compliance and Monday's e911 mandate deadline. In particluar, she examined
why carriers may need to look for a non GPS solution to E911. This response comes from John Cunningham of SnapTrack (a subsidiary of QUALCOMM®)
a leading location technology solution provider.
The Oct. 4th Wireless Devnet article, “Carriers Need a Non-GPS 911 Solution,” was incorrect in its cost, performance, and availability assertions about the Assisted GPS mobile phone positioning technology developed by SnapTrack/Qualcomm, and incorporated into our commercially available gpsOne solution. Our gpsOne mobile phone location system is not only the >first< high precision system to be deployed for Phase II E911 in the U.S. (via Sprint PCS), it is also the >only< high precision system commercially available to consumers today, and has been in service since April 2001 with SECOM via the KDDI network in Japan.
US consumers may purchase gpsOne-enabled phones manufactured by Samsung (the SPH-N300) via Sprint PCS, and in coming months they will have access to more phone models supplied by more carriers a fact that belies the article’s claims that “not one US carrier has met Monday’s E911 mandate deadline.” A more nuanced description of E911 status in the US would have been appropriate given the scope of the article. For example, an examination of the filings made to the FCC show that those carriers that have adopted GPS-based E911 are either beginning deployment of E911, or will do so long before any of those carriers that have chosen non-GPS-based E911 systems.
Furthermore, the $2 billion cost figure claimed for deploying a GPS-based location system is simply unsupportable. As far as we are aware, no carrier has filed any such statement with the FCC. The implementation of a GPS-based system like SnapTrack/Qualcomm’s gpsOne hybrid location solution is simple and cost-effective, and has been estimated to be as little as ¼ to 1/10th the cost of deploying a network-based location solution. A paper from the German Federal Armed Forces labs in Munich (“Synergies Between Satellite Navigation and Location Services of Terrestrial Mobile Communication,” Hein, Eissfeller, Oehler, Winkel, FAF Labs Munich, Sept. 2000) indicates that the it will cost deployment cost $2 billion and $4 billion per carrier to deploy a location system like EOTD. Qualcomm has integrated gpsOne functionality into the very same Digital Signal Processing chips and RF chips that run the cell phone, which means that there is negligible handset form factor impact and battery life impact, and a very low incremental deployment cost per handset.
As an integrated solution, gpsOne takes advantage of Moore’s Law, and within a few years will simply be a standard, low cost feature on many DSPs. At present, we estimate that the Bill of Materials cost to integrate gpsOne into a handset is under $5 a number we expect to see drop dramatically with higher volumes in the market. In terms of retail prices, we expect them to be similar to that of non-gpsOne modified phones, an expectation borne out by the market. For example, of the dual-band phones currently offered by Sprint PCS, the Samsung SPH-N300 gpsOne-enabled phone is retailing for $149.99 right at the lower midpoint of Sprint’s phones (most of which retail from $99-$149), a price it shares with five other non-GPS enabled phones. Denso has also made public its “3300” phone with gpsOne, and has been marketing it to carriers since March 2001. In addition, Qualcomm’s MSM3300 chip (with gpsOne) is currently under license by some 20 handset manufacturers, and the MSM5100 for CDMA 1x is now commercially available and more chips featuring integrated gpsOne are on the way for CDMA 1x and WCDMA/GSM.
And while Conventional GPS solutions may indeed have trouble in urban or built up areas, as pointed out in the article, a distinction needs to be made between Conventional GPS and the SnapTrack/Qualcomm gpsOne solution. gpsOne does indeed work indoors, and does not need line of sight to the sky to provide a quality position fix. Unlike conventional GPS solutions, the GPS Indoors™ capability of SnapTrack and Qualcomm’s system enables gpsOne coverage inside buildings and urban canyons, and has been proven extensively through audited trials in Europe, North America, and Asia. gpsOne is a highly sensitive hybrid solution that combines both network ranging information and GPS satellite signals to determine the position of a mobile device, and it has a demonstrated ability to process GPS satellite signals as weak as 153dBm to 155dBm (a typical signal level present inside many types of structures), far below the conventional receiver threshold of 133dBm to 141dBm. Indeed, “line of sight” for gpsOne not only includes the ability to “see” a weak and attenuated GPS satellite signal through obstructions, but it can also utilize signals received via multipath. And if it is so deep inside a heavy building that it cannot “see” any GPS signals, it may use network ranging information to fix the position of the phone -- so wherever you can communicate, you can locate.
As for the time it takes to locate a mobile device, SnapTrack and Qualcomm’s location solution typically locates a mobile phone in 5-10 seconds ( in case of a “Cold start, first fix,” in which the phone is turned off and does not know its location). Carrier trials and filings with the FCC support this performance. For example, Qwest’s filing with the FCC for E911 trials states a “6-12” second first fix time, while Nextel reported a “8.7sec. to 11.4sec” delay for a first fix in its trial results filing far faster than the “20-30 seconds” delay described in your article. A 20-30 second delay might be typical of a Conventional GPS solution, but not of ours.
gpsOne is a cost-effective, high performance, all-terrain E911 and Location-based Services technology solution that has been proven in the market, and deployed in the US and Japan. It is commercially available today to carriers and consumers alike, and more than meets the FCC’s E911 mandate.
John Cunningham
Marketing Manager, SnapTrack
www.snaptrack.com
Tel: +1.408.626.0522
Fax: +1.408.626.0550
Why carriers may need to look for a non GPS solution to E911
For more on this see the WDN e911 Resource Page
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