Technology Suppliers’ views - Ofcom · Technology Suppliers’ views Confidential problem that...

Technology Suppliers’ views

Views from key players

April 2010

Ofcom

Confidential

271157 TCS 0.1 0

ofcomlocation/Technology summaries

29 April 2010

Technology Suppliers’ views

Views from key players

April 2010

Ofcom

Confidential

Mott MacDonald, Sea Containers House, 20 Upper Ground, London SE1 9LZ, United Kingdom

T +44(0) 20 7593 9700 F +44(0) 20 7928 2471 W www.mottmac.com

Technology Suppliers’ views Confidential

Mott MacDonald, Sea Containers House, 20 Upper Ground, London SE1 9LZ, United Kingdom

T +44(0) 20 7593 9700 F +44(0) 20 7928 2471 W www.mottmac.com

Revision Date Originator Checker Approver Description

Version 1.0 22nd April P SKeffington A Whitelaw R Hewlett

Issue and revision record

This document is issued for the party which commissioned it

and for specific purposes connected with the above-captioned

project only. It should not be relied upon by any other party or

used for any other purpose.

We accept no responsibility for the consequences of this

document being relied upon by any other party, or being used

for any other purpose, or containing any error or omission

which is due to an error or omission in data supplied to us by

other parties

This document contains confidential information and proprietary

intellectual property. It should not be shown to other parties

without consent from us and from the party which

commissioned it.

271157/TCS//0.1/0 29 April 2010 ofcomlocation/Technology summaries


Chapter Title Page

Executive Summary i

1. Introduction 1

2. Views from suppliers on technology maturity and applicability 2

Content

i 271157/TCS//0.1/0 29 April 2010 ofcomlocation/Technology summaries


The technology interviews showed that “hybrid” positioning systems have

emerged. This allows A-GPS to be used whenever there is “open sky” conditions.

Hybrid satellite and terrestrial positioning can be combined where partial views of

the sky are available, falling back to all terrestrial network methods when “no sky”

is available. The most common hybrid consists of A-GPS with fall back to UTDOA

.

Solutions exist for 2G, for CDMA and are expected for LTE. There is some

question mark over whether UTDOA works well for W-CDMA.

OTDOA and RF fingerprinting techniques look to be available for LTE in the

future. The RF fingerprinting techniques rely on a high penetration level of GPS

handsets in order to keep the RF fingerprints up to date in a cost effective

manner.

Executive Summary

1 271157/TCS//0.1/0 29 April 2010 ofcomlocation/Technology summaries


Mott MacDonald approached a number of suppliers for their views on

location technology with specific emphasis on their portfolios’ abilities to

meet the FCC requirement. Some helped us sharing future views on

technology development, some shared costs, but only at a very outline

level. Some suppliers did not talk with us. We were able to speak with a

number of suppliers to the USA market, from which we believe we have

a fairly accurate view as to the state of play.

1. Introduction



Without doubt the technology leader in this area is the USA,

Qualcomm, Truepoint and Andrew dominate the positioning

technologies and have more advanced products in the market. To get

accurate location information for mobile callers requires interaction

between the handset, the positioning technologies and the wireless

networks. This of itself has been a complex problem to solve with

significant challenges.

Ericsson View

The table 2.1 below shows a view of the current status of positioning.

Table 2.1: Positioning solutions

2G

3G

LTE

Urban

accuracy (m)

Rural

accuracy (m)

Indoor

reliable

Total Cost

of

Ownership

Limitations

Enhanced

Cell-ID

√

√

250-400

1000-5000

YES Low

E-CGI

550-420 Ericsson proprietary

AECID

Fingerprinting

√ √ √ 150-250 700-2000

YES

Low medium Needs high level of GPS penetration in order to

reduce the maintenance costs associated with

keeping RF fingerprint up to date.

RF Fingerprinting

√

√

√

50-200

500-1500 YES Medium Requires detailed knowledge of radio

network, antenna direction, tilt, types, RF

power. A radio planning tool and/or RF drive test are needed. Cheaper if

GPS handset penetration high

UTDOA

√ ? 50-100 50-100 YES Very high Problems implementing in a W-CDMA network,

Works CDMA and in 2G (by installing LMUs) Not

part of 2G network but must integrate with it.

Rural antenna planning must be optimised.

OTDOA

(AFTL for

X

X

√

50

150

YES Medium Only LTE, did not work well in 2G or WCDMA

2. Views from suppliers on technology maturity and applicability



Table 2.1: Positioning solutions

2G

3G

LTE

Urban

accuracy (m)

Rural

accuracy (m)

Indoor

reliable

Total Cost

of

Ownership

Limitations

CDMA) networks, although worked well on CDMA.

Needs GPS on all base stations or other means of

synchronising transmission from masts

to handsets. Rural antenna planning must be

optimised.

A-GPS √ √ √ 15-90 15-30 NO Low Not in all terminals. A GPS receiver must be installed at each base station. For

LTE roll-outs if a GPS receiver is included for

commercial reasons this reduces the cost to the

emergency services. €5-10K per base station

UTDOA worked well for 2G, but there were huge problems with W-

SDMA (due to modulation) and similar problems are expected with LTE.

The use of OTDOA is still under discussion for LTE in the

standardisation process. For both OTDOA, and RF Fingerprinting

optimum positioning accuracy can be achieved with optimum RF

planning, so that “retro-fitting” location techniques is not the best way to

achieve accurate position information from the network.

Andrew

Andrew has a portfolio of location techniques that are implemented on a

single platform for ease of mobile operator integration. Andrew believes

that to satisfy the FCC mandate in all scenarios requires a range of

solutions.

Andrew corporation offers a Mobile Location Centre (MLC) that

integrates SMLC/GMLC, SAS, SLP,E-SMLC, so that a range of

wireless network generations and technologies can be supported in a

single unit.



Andrew corporation support A-GPS, RTT Cell-ID, hybrids of GPS and

network based techniques, Enhanced Cell-ID, OTDOA, UTDOA and its

own proprietary Multi-Range Estimation Location (MREL). A specialised

product for indoor location is to be added to the portfolio shortly.

Andrew believes that it is possible for operators to share the expensive

LMU equipment and PDEs between operators. In the states there is a

managed service offering emerging whereby the mobile operators

outsource the positioning solution completely (this is not yet publicly

announced).

Bluesky

Bluesky produce, in partnership with SIM manufacturers an A-GPS

antenna and receiver on a SIM. This is currently being tested by two

large mobile operators and a design is in progress for a mass produced

version.

It is believed that accuracy levels of 5m, 30m and 100m are being

achieved. The accuracy level can be dynamically set by the application

in the SIM, so that a choice between best TTFF or best accuracy can

be made. The SIM supports hybrid solutions such that if no satellites

can be “seen” the positioning method can fall back to Cell-ID, for

example. The SIM can also be pre-programmed to send an automatic

SMS to the PSAP containing essential details of the user, name,

nationality, diseases/chronic conditions, blood group etc.

TTFF with assistance can be as low as 20s with of 10-12s thereafter for

location updates.

The A-GPS SIM does need more RAM than a standard SIM, which

currently come in 64kByte and 128kByte variants:

� 256 KBytes are needed for the GPS application

� 256K Bytes by the SIM vendor.

The cost of a SIM card is approximately €1, by the time this has

reached the subscriber the cost to the mobile operator is €5-10, added

due to distribution and packing costs.

An A-GPS SIM card may have an initial price of €5 by the time this has

reached the subscriber the cost to the operator is €10-15. This is likely

to be cheaper than upgrading all handsets and would get around the



problem that not all subscribers want a GPS handsets and the lack of

availability of GPS on some models of handset.1

The use of the GPS SIM would strengthen the operator’s ability to offer

its own location applications, also security (notably privacy) can be

better enforced using the SIM applications.

Distribution of the new SIMs would not be easy and similarly to the case

of handsets would require a fairly concerted effort on the part of the

mobile operators.

Teleatlas (GIS provider) view

In the USA all operators were given freedom to implement the FCC

location requirements in their own preferred way. How they chose this

is perceived in some quarters to have slowed down the implementation

considerably and added expense. The location information was

provided to different quality levels which meant that for commercial LBS

eg navigation it was not possible in the USA for a navigation application

on one device to work the same on different networks, this is in contrast

with the Korean achievement where LBS works across different

network operators. In Europe interoperability has stimulated wireless

access. Having more than two standards is detrimental to the

development of the eco-system.

Qualcomm (not interviewed)

The Qualcomm solution supports A-GPS and hybrid solutions. Where

A-GPS fails the best hybrid information from satellite and network

triangulation points is used.

Qualcomm showed that you could use the same receiver hardware to

access CDMA from the terrestrial network (CDMA network only) and

from GPS satellites, which significantly reduced the cost of the finished

handset. CDMA based services therefore have a cost advantage, and

are well positioned for mobile-satellite convergence.

The Qualcomm integrated product, means that handset manufacturers

only had to add an antenna and a few filters rather than one or two new

CDMA chipsets.

_________________________

1 Currently Nokia anticipates that 50% of its models will be GPS enabled by

2013.



Qulacomm’s gpsOne service offers:

� multiple modes of GPS operation, standalone, MS-Based, MS-

Assisted, Hybrid and gpsOneXTRA™ Assistance

� enhanced standalone GPS through gpsOneXTRA Assistance

� Standalone TTFF Hot, Warm Cold (1s/29s/35s) respectively

Qualcomm's 3GPP and GERAN compliant location servers support

UMTS control plane, GSM control plane and OMA SUPL 1.0 and are

all compatible with gpsOne.

Alcatel Lucent View

Alcatel Lucent equipment supports 2G networks to meet FCC

requirements; Alcatel Lucent anticipate that LTE will also be supported

by positioning technology which meets the FCC mandate.

In 3GPP 23.891 architecture defines 5 possible solutions and after

voting it was narrowed to support one which is defined in 23.271

(control plane + user plane with SUPL with E-SMLC).

Alcatel Lucent support this and can also support circuit switch fallback

as an option defined in 23.272, this has been deployed in some US

mobile networks.

For LTE the eNodeB must be synchronised to improve location data in

downlink of OTDOA; The standards had a sync at 3 microseconds

Alcatel Lucent synchronised its CDMA base stations to 1 microsecond

improving results. Alcatel Lucent are striving to have eNodeB

synchronisation (in LTE solutions) to 100ns

To meet FCC E9-1-1 requirement Alcatel-Lucent recommends both

network based and device base solutions. Alcatel Lucent recommends

GPS as a device based solution and down link OTDOA as a network

based solution – when used in harmony (hand in hand) together the

requirements of 50m accuracy 67% time and 150m accuracy 95%

time can be met.

In the USA 100% of 2G/3G CDMA handsets are equipped with GPS

(GSM still has few handsets that support GPS). They meet location

requirements by using uplink OTDOA provided by a third party.

Height and/or altitude is not required by FCC. However, altitude is

available with handset based A-GPS solutions; it is not available in

OTDOA network solutions. NOTE: Even if A-GPS altitude is available

at handset its error potential is 100m, thus not very accurate.

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