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Problems and Solutions; Wireless Location Based Services
By Xinhang Shen, President, President NAC Geographic Products Inc. (January 2003)
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Introduction
(Published by WirelessDevNet.com, Jan. 22, 2003)Looking for addresses is one of the most frequent activities for travelers. It is always a time-consuming and sometimes very frustrating
process. This is especially true when a Western traveler finding an address in Japan where most streets have no names and buildings
are numbered in a random fashion.
Many people expect high intelligent cellphones to help. According to IDC, in a January 2002 survey of 700 U.S. wireless households,
location-based services scored highest in terms of consumer interest, with permission-based traffic information being second only to
emergency-location service, and just ahead of opt-in location-based information on nearby businesses such as nearest movie theater
and gas stations. "The consumer wireless market is very receptive to location-based services, particularly for those related to driving,
traffic and directions," said Scott Ellison, Program Director, Wireless and Mobile Communications at IDC [2].
As reported by Strategis Group in year 2000 [3], revenues for value-added location-based services could reach nearly $4 billion per
annum by 2002. In the survey of that report, respondents said they were willing to pay up to $28 extra for a location capable handset
and an extra monthly fee of up to $26 for bundled location services. 65% of wireless users are interested in turn-by-turn navigation
assistance and are willing to pay more than $1 each time they use the service. “These services can make your life much more
convenient,” said Rod Nelson, AT&T Wireless senior vice president & CTO. Similarly, according to the April 2000 Strategis Group
report “European Wireless Location Services”, Mobile Location and Information Services were forecast to be worth US$81.9 billion
by 2005.
However, by the end of 2002, Cahners In-Stat predicts that carriers' revenue from location-based services in the U.S. will be only $11
million in 2003, and climb to only $167 million by 2006 [4], far less than what Strategis Group predicted two years ago. Stan
Bruederle, an analyst at Gartner Dataquest, said that in order for the services to enjoy widespread adoption, companies will have to
offer services that have real value. "The things that people have come up with are not that compelling to consumers," said the analyst
[5].
Having analyzed the situation, we think one of the major causes is the inefficiency of current geographic coordinates used to represent
locations and areas. Because geographic coordinates such as longitude/latitude or UTM require about 20 characters to represent
locations to the accuracy of meters, these coordinates are extremely difficult for general consumers to read, input, communicate and
remember and therefore are nearly useless to consumers.
Due to this problem of geographic coordinates, wireless location based services still have to use traditional addresses and place names
to specify locations and areas. On a small telephone key pad, inputting long addresses on a cellphone is very time-consuming and
frustrating. Because addresses do not have strict standards and have many variations, parsing various addresses on current location
based services frequently results in errors. Moreover, inputting addresses with special or foreign characters on cellphones is another
big problem.
All these make location based services lack of attraction. Manufacturers reluctant to add location capability to cellphones, and
consumers are reluctant to pay extra money to purchase the new feature for their cellphones and to use wireless location based
services. Therefore, the wireless location based services grow much slower than expectations. Wireless carriers become desperate as
large investments in location based services do not generate expected revenue and profit.
The Natural Area Coding System brings hopes for the entire wireless location based service industry. The new technology provides
highly efficient Universal Addresses and universal area codes (Natural Area Codes) for all locations and areas in the world. People
can save more than 80% of input keys to specify any locations in the world with Universal Addresses instead of traditional addresses,
and save even more input keys to specify any areas with any sizes in the world with Natural Area Codes instead of place names. This
technology can significantly improve all location related products and services.
Enhanced with this revolutionary technology, cellphones and other wireless devices will become powerful navigation tools and
information sources, and wireless location based services will become compelling to consumers. Original optimistic expectations for
wireless location based services may revive.
In the following sections, five important applications of the Natural Area Coding System have been described.
Universal Address Lookup Service
As described in [6], Universal Addresses have many advantages than traditional addresses such as:
- Universal Addresses are language and culture independent
- Universal Addresses are available for every location on the earth
- Universal Addresses are standard and valid in the whole world
- Universal Addresses are short and use only alphanumeric characters that can be easily remembered, communicated, input
into and displayed on all electronic devices, and included on business cards, telephone catalogs, tourist guides, etc
- Universal Addresses are systematically distributed that people can easily figure out the relationship between any two
Universal Addresses (distance, direction, etc)
- Universal Addresses can be directly pinpointed on all maps no matter what scales or projection they have
- Universal Addresses can be measured, displayed and navigated with any GPS receivers
- Universal Addresses can also be used as global postal codes to sort all domestic and international mail automatically
- Universal Addresses can be used as Universal Property Identifiers to efficiently identify and manage all kinds of properties in
the world such as buildings, houses, parking spaces, fire hydrants, sewage exits, trees, wells, etc
Since eight alphanumeric character Universal Addresses are completely equivalent to any traditional addresses in the world for all
location based services, it can save more than 80% of input keys to use Universal Addresses instead of traditional addresses on all
location based services. This is especially important for wireless location based services because inputting characters on cellphones
are very time-consuming and 80% saving of input keys is significant. Universal Addresses will also overcome the barriers of inputting
addresses with characters not directly available on the key pad. This feature will make location based services easily provided across
areas with different languages.
Therefore, providing such useful Universal Addresses itself will become an important revenue generating services. Universal Address
lookup services can be provided mainly in three different media: telephone catalogs, Internet and wireless media.
1. Publish Universal Addresses as part of addresses on telephone catalogs
Since telephone companies have already geocoded all addresses of all fixed telephones for emergency services. It is
convenient for them to list Universal Addresses together with telephone numbers and addresses on yellow and white pages,
using a simple program to convert longitude/latitude coordinates into Universal Addresses. Listing Universal Addresses on
telephone catalogs will require little extra cost but add much new values.
Figure 1. Telephone Catalogs Listing Universal Addresses
Unlike other publications, telephone catalogs are published every year and delivered to every household. It is the most
efficient media to create wide availability of Universal Addresses to help people use Universal Address enhanced wireless
location based services. The addition of Universal Addresses will also make telephone catalogs much more useful. Many
people will use telephone catalogs to look up their Universal Addresses which will dramatically increase the page views of
the telephone catalogs and generate great exposures for their advertisements. Nearly everybody need to know their
Universal Address in order to include it as part of their address on business cards, tourist guides, advertisements, etc so that
their visitors can more efficiently find their location.
If these telephone catalogs include street maps with NAC grids, their uses will be even more enhanced because users can
directly pinpoint any location of interest with Universal Address on these maps and save much precious time.
2. Use web pages to provide Universal Address lookup service
Currently, there are already many yellow pages and white pages search services on the Internet. These services are mainly
run by telephone companies. They have all the geographic coordinates (longitude/latitude) of all fixed telephone in their
databases. It requires only a dozen lines of source code to turn these web services into Universal Address lookup services.
The cost for adding this new functionality is negligible, while the new value is huge. The following is an interface for a
Universal Address lookup service.
Figure 2. Web Page of Universal Address Lookup Service
People can use either a traditional address or a fixed phone number to find the Universal Address. This service will not only
help people get Universal Addresses for wireless location based services, but itself will generate significant revenue through
online advertisements because Universal Address lookup service will be needed almost by all people.
3. Use wireless Universal Address lookup service
Although telephone catalogs and web pages can provide Universal Address lookup services more widely, wireless
Universal Address lookup service will have its unique advantages. When people are on roads, there are no telephone
catalogs and wired Internet access available, and wireless Universal Address lookup service will become the only option for
them. Therefore, there is certain demand for such a service.
For wireless location based service providers, all location based services can share the same geographic database, and
providing wireless Universal Address lookup service will be only an interface created with an ignorable extra cost. Here is
an example of such an interface for wireless Universal Address lookup service.
Figure 3. Wireless Universal Address Lookup Service
On this interface, people can use either a traditional address or a fixed phone number to lookup their Universal Address.
The revenue for this kind of service can be generated by charging each lookup transaction or the data transmitted.
GPS Enhanced Cellphone
GPS technology now is getting matured. Many GPS chips are available at prices below $10. It has become quite easy to integrate GPS
capability into cellphones with little extra cost. Now, many cellphones have GPS functionality even directly embedded on the phone
chip which makes the size even smaller, the battery life even longer and the price even lower. These new technologies plus the E911
requirement pushed by FCC of the United States will make GPS cellphones widely available on the market. Therefore, it’s the time to
deploy the utility of GPS cellphones.
Now there is a funny thing that many GPS cellphones do not display geographic coordinates on cellphones. The geographic
coordinates will be only transmitted to the wireless carriers for emergency calls. This is because simple longitude/latitude coordinates
do not have much meaning to general consumers.
This situation will be changed by introducing NAC technology which will turn GPS cellphones into a powerful navigation tool
without extra costs. Including a few lines conversion code, a GPS cellphone will be able to directly display its current Universal
Address and therefore it can be directly used to find Universal Addresses anywhere in the world. This is because the distance and
direction between any two Universal Addresses can be easily estimated by counting the number of grid cells in both directions.
Figure 4. GPS Cellphone
For example, if the destination Universal Address is NAC: GH8JS QFGSL and the current location is NAC: 8H8JK QFGSD, you can
see the differences between these two Universal Addresses: seven grid cells of Level 5 NAC grid in easting and six grid cells of Level
5 NAC grid in northing. A cell of Level 5 NAC grid has about 35 meters in easting and 25 meters in northing. Therefore, the
destination is about 7 x 35 = 245 meters in east and 5 x 25 = 125 meters in north.
GPS cellphones can also be used to find out the Universal Address of any location in the world. Therefore they can also be used as a
Universal Address lookup tool to obtain the Universal Addresses of any addresses.
In this application, wireless carriers can provide Assisted GPS (A-GPS) service that can significantly reduce the time and power
consumption of cellphones in determining the current location and increase their accuracy. That will be another revenue source for
wireless carriers.
Wireless Driving Directions Service
Driving directions service is one of the most needed wireless applications because people frequently miss turns when they are driving
on unfamiliar roads. Any small mistakes in driving result in significant wasting of time and gasoline, and sometimes even loss of lives.
Although there are in-car navigation systems without wireless services available on the market, wireless driving directions service has
many advantages such as:
- Wireless services do not need very large device memory to save maps and location databases that makes equipment smaller,
less expensive and less power consuming
- Wireless services can save money for purchasing packages of maps and geographic databases
- Wireless services can save time in downloading or uploading maps and geographic data in advance
- Wireless services can cover much larger area
- Wireless services can provide updated maps and real-time traffic information
- Wireless services can be completely integrated on a small cellphone that can be easily carried everywhere and used for other
navigation too.
All these give wireless carriers great opportunities to beat all other navigation systems.
However, wireless driving directions service faces a serious bottleneck that make the service less attractive. This bottleneck is the
inconvenience in inputting location information on cellphones. It usually requires at least three input interfaces for driving directions
service because of the small screen of a cellphone. Each address has about 40 characters. It is extremely time-consuming to use
cellphone key pad to input these addresses. When addresses include special or foreign characters, it will be even more difficult.
Figure 5. Driving Directions Service Using Traditional Addresses
This situation is more popular in Europe where even a short distance may cross country borders with addresses in different languages.
Using traditional addresses also blocks the uses of driving directions services for locations without addresses such as temporary
camping sites, fishing spots, etc.
The Universal Addresses can solve all these problems:
- Using Universal Addresses to specify start and end locations instead of traditional addresses can make the interface of a
driving directions service on a single page that will make the interface much clearer because the user can see all the
information immediately.
- Each location specified in Universal Address will need only eight characters that can save more than 80% of input keys
compared with using a traditional address.
- Since Universal Addresses are in alphanumeric characters, they can be input on all cellphones to eliminate the difficulty in
inputting addresses with foreign characters as shown frequently on traditional addresses.
With these three improvements, wireless driving directions services will become compelling to general consumers and more
people will use them.
Figure 6. Driving Directions
Services Using Universal Addresses
Wireless Map Service
Wireless map service is also an important service that many people need because in many situations, maps can be much clearer and
more efficient to present spatial information than other descriptions. It is a service that no wireless carriers afford to ignore. The map
service can share the same geographic database with the driving directions service. It is just a simple addition of an interface to the
driving directions service. This has been demonstrated by many online driving directions service providers such as Yahoo, MSN,
MapQuest, etc.
Now the problem is how to efficiently retrieve a map from a large geographic database. It does work using traditional addresses, place
names, postal codes, telephone area codes, etc to retrieve maps for specific areas, but there are many problems:
- All these methods are language and country dependent. It’s very difficult to create a universal interface to specify addresses
or places for the entire world.
- It’s difficult for users to input addresses and place names with foreign characters, while people always need maps when they
are in foreign countries.
- These methods do not cover all areas with different sizes, while areas of interests do not always overlap with those defined by
these methods.
- These methods always require inputting long character strings.
These problems make wireless map services area limited, inefficient and incomplete, and therefore become less attractive to users. All
these problems can be solved by the introduction of the Natural Area Coding System which provides highly efficient universal and
systematic area codes for all areas in the world with any sizes.
- Using a Natural Area Code (NAC) to retrieve a map can make a map service fit into one single page interface on the small
screen of a cellphone that can serve maps for the entire world.
- A two alphanumeric character NAC can uniquely specify any area about 1000x700 kilometers anywhere in the world. For
example, NAC: 8 Q is roughly the area of the Province of Ontario.
- A four character NAC can specify any area about 33x24 kilometers anywhere in the world. For example, NAC: 8C Q8
roughly represents the City of Toronto.
- A six character NAC can specify every square kilometer area on the earth.
- NAC can also make zooming and panning maps very efficient. For example, if a map of NAC 8CD Q8J is on the screen and
you want to get a map at the top left cell of the NAC grid, you can simply type 8CC Q8K. If you want to display a map with
multiple NAC cells, you can type a complex NAC such as 8CC-F Q8H-K. Using NAC can perform any kind of zooming and
panning.
Figure 7. Map Service Using NAC
Since map services always transmit more data than text message. Providing map services can significantly increase revenue for
wireless carriers because wireless data services usually measured by actual packets transmitted.
Wireless Location Based Search Service
Location based search service is also an important wireless service. When people travel in an unfamiliar area, especially in a suburb
area where not many people available to give helps, wireless location based search service will be really helpful. For example, when
you are running out of gas, you have to find the nearest gas station quickly. With a GPS cellphone and wireless location based search
service, you can find it immediately because the GPS capability can directly send your current location information to the server. A
one dollar service may save you much time and gas to find a gas station.
But the situation is not always like this. In many cases, people have to reserve a hotel room near a destination in advance that the GPS
can’t help. They have to type in the address of the destination and specify a range on a cellphone to make such a search. This leads to
the same problems as described in driving directions services where the address has many disadvantages such as language dependent,
not available to all locations, long character strings, etc. Some foreign characters in addresses may lead to a complete failure in using
such a service. Long character strings in an address require multiple pages to input and make the service time-consuming and
frustrating.
Figure 8. Location Based Search Service
The Natural Area Coding System will make wireless location based search services significantly improved:
- Using Natural Area Codes can compress the information of location and range into 4 or 6 characters to save more than 80%
of input keys compared with using a traditional address plus a range specification that requires more than four lines of long
character strings
- The input interface of wireless location based search service using Natural Area Codes needs only one page, while that using
a traditional address plus range specification needs at least two pages
- The input interface of wireless location based search service using Natural Area Codes can be used to serve the entire world,
while that using traditional addresses plus range specification can be used to serve areas of only one language
- Natural Area Codes make wireless location based services able to serve any area with any size in the world, while traditional
address based services can only be used for areas with names.
Enhanced with these four improvements, wireless location based service will become compelling to users and can easily beat all other
competitors without the enhancement of the revolutionary technology.
About NAC Geographic Products Inc.
NAC Geographic Products Inc. is a Canadian software development company based in Toronto, Canada specialized in the computer
and geo-technologies: GIS, GPS, Internet and wireless applications.
In addition to the revolutionary technology of the Natural Area Coding System (http://www.nacgeo.com/nacsite/), the company is also
experienced in the development of GIS and GPS software and web/wireless applications.
The company developed one of the world first web GIS client software (WEBGIS and NACMAP) compliant with the Open GIS
WMS Specifications. They are both written in Java. It has also published many software products such as NACGIS, NACDraw,
NACDatum, NACGeocode, NACView, NACNav, NACWincap, NACGPS, etc.
Its WEBGIS has become a popular GIS engine on many web sites providing highly intelligent maps such as
Real-Time Global Vehicle Tracking System on TravelGIS.com
Online Web Map Service
NAC Geographic Products Inc. has been on the development of GIS and GPS applications since 1995 and is one of the world leading
companies in geographic related technologies.
More information about the company is available at www.nacgeo.com.
References
1. The Black Art of Finding A Japanese Address (http://www.pandemic.com/tokyo/addressfinder.cfm)
2. Soaring Wireline Displacement and Highest Interest in Location-Based Services: U.S. Wireless Household
Survey Results, 2002. International Data Corporation.
3. Great Location Expectations (http://www.wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_great_location_expectations/)
4. Analysts Projections for Location Technologies and Associated Markets (http://www.comm-
nav.com/projections.htm)
5. LATEST E911 NEWS SUMMARY ANALYSIS (http://www.davidhwilliams.com/pages/5/index.htm)
6. Geographic Coordinates and Universal Address (http://www.nacgeo.com/GEOTec/)
(c)2003 NAC Geographic Products Inc., January 2003
Author:
NAC Geographic Products Inc.
1608-45 Huntingdale Blvd.
Toronto, ON, M1W 2N8
Canada
NAC: 8CNB Q8Z4
Tel: 416 496 6110
Email: xshen@nacgeo.com
Web: www.nacgeo.com
Related Weblinks:
Article in Globe & Mail
Details description and specifications
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