LBS Standards and challenges in adapting to it
by Purushottam Darshankar
Location Based service provides geographic information using device/users location information, spatial data and content based on the user preferences. Until now most of the focus on LBS market has been on consumer market. Location identifier, friend finder, traffic information, convenience services, point of interests etc. have been contributing to more and more revenues for telecom operators. However the possibilities of ease of use, improving the productivity, operational efficiency and reduce cost through location aware services are seemingly endless for enterprise users. Enterprises see the benefits of giving their mobile personnel ready access to ‘where’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ information about the world around them, including information about mobile and stationary humans and physical assets. Also, emergency services, security and disaster management concerns are driving governments to deploy information systems with fully integrated geospatial capabilities, including LBS.
The major factor for enterprise LBS growth is its demand and technology readiness. The enterprise application such as field force automation, fleet management, asset tracking, location billing, CRM, inventory management and telematics etc. are being deployed today. The practicality of these applications are derived from – market proven advances in device technologies, web based software technologies and LBS standards. The most critical enabler for enterprise LBS is standard.
The new LBS standards are still on early stages in their level of maturity. The key challenge for LBS provider is to access the network operator and content provider through proprietary interfaces. As a result the integration effort to support business model workflow is high. Enterprises want LBS to be seamless with their enterprise information system. Shared resources, seamless interoperability, extensibility and collaboration are key to enterprise LBS.
Standards relevant to Location Based Services
The open mobile Alliance (OMA) and Open GIS consortium (OGC) are main governing bodies to provide LBS standards. OMA addresses all key elements of the LBS value chain including those addressed by Location Interoperability Forum (LIF) and Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) forum. The LIF and WAP are now part of OMA. LIF provides specification for determining location information securely.
The most important specification that OMA has come up with is MLP (Mobile Location Protocol). MLP enables LBS applications to interoperate with wireless network regardless of its air interfaces (GSM, CDMA etc.) and positioning methods. MLP defines a common interface that facilitates exchange of location information between the LBS application and location servers in wireless network (SMLC/GMLC). It also supports the privacy of user providing access to location information only to those who are authorized one.
To complement LIF’s advanced MLP services, OGC has come up with OpenLS Services which addresses the geospatial interoperability issues. Key services such as coordinate transformation, Web Mapping, Geography Markup Language (GML), geoprocessing and web integration are handled in OpenLS specification. The OpenLS platform provides open interfaces to LBS core services such as route determination, Directory, location utility (geocoder that obtains X,Y co-ordinates from address, and reverse geocoder that obtains address from X,Y co-ordinates), presentation (display showing map, point of interest, etc.), gateway (find position of mobile terminal ‘from the network’), etc. OpenLS abstract data types (ADTs) are the basic information constructs used by these core services. ADTs are ‘application schemas’ of well-known data types and structures for location information encoded in OGC’s XML for Location Services (XLS). These schemas encode location information, for example, route summary and route geometry, route instructions, location, area of interest and point of interest and address, etc.
OMA and OGC’s specifications are harmonised with those from telecoms standards groups connecting wire and wireless voice systems and the Internet – groups such as Parlay, Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 3GPP2, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and others.
Challenges in adapting to standards
The LBS standards have not been fully adapted yet; they are still on early stages in their level of maturity. As in other IT domain, open standards put pressure on companies that uses and sell proprietary solutions, but they also provide market extensibility- much broader adoption. The commercial potential and business advantages inherent in using LBS standards are attractive even to those companies that will need to eventually abandon the proprietary solutions they use or sell today. Some providers of LBS, particularly in Japan and Europe, are profiting from LBS offerings in consumer market that are increasing their overall wireless market share, and these companies will surely delay their implementation of standards. However their competitors, made more competitive through the benefits of standards, are likely to push them into the standards world.
The businesses who are adapting to standard based enterprise system will resists carriers efforts to ‘lock them into’ proprietary solutions and would put pressure on standard platform as it would meet their interoperability needs. For telecom operators it would provide a control on what applications they introduce and how those applications are integrated with content providers and their systems. For application service provider standard platform provide a one-stop shop for all their location-based application development needs.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Adding the Map to Blog so easy....
By Purushottam Darshankar
To add a Google Map to BLog or any web page is so simple....
1) Go to WikiMapia.org site and find a part of the map that you want to display....
2) Click "WikiMapia" at the top corner and choose "map on your page" link.
3) Move and resize frame you see to desired view, adjust view setting if needed and copy given html code to your page or blog.
That's all.
Here is a map of apartment in Mumbai where I stay:
To add a Google Map to BLog or any web page is so simple....
1) Go to WikiMapia.org site and find a part of the map that you want to display....
2) Click "WikiMapia" at the top corner and choose "map on your page" link.
3) Move and resize frame you see to desired view, adjust view setting if needed and copy given html code to your page or blog.
That's all.
Here is a map of apartment in Mumbai where I stay:
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Indian IT– Industry-Institute Interaction, Bridging the digital divide key to success
By Purushottam Darshankar
India is gaining a prominence in the IT outsourcing. However, interpretation of outsourcing has changed over a period of time.
Initially it was process of delegating activities which were not part of organizations prime agendas. However, outsourcing today has a whole new prospective. Now we see outsourcing where full ownership of their product, in all aspect of product life cycle like ideation, R&D, prototyping and testing are outsourced.
The outsourcing product development stand to around $11 Billion in India today. Expectations are still bigger since todays $150 - $200 Billion global IT market is expected to grow further in spite of US market slowdown.
This brings us to an important question. Will technology education in the country be able to keep pace with tomorrow’s manpower requirement? Currently we have 1.6 million people employed in IT and ITES domain (with around 6.6 million people indirectly linked to this service) and it is estimated that five times that number will be required in next 6-7 years.
While the numbers by themselves are worrisome, the quality of the talent is even more critical. As of now, the talent pool is almost running dry, with companies fighting amongst themselves for right talent. With around 0.5 million engineers graduating from various universities, demand supply should not be that critical. However fewer that 10% graduate are actually employable or come with proper combination of technical expertise and soft skills (communication, teamwork and leadership abilities). One solution to this would be more industry institute tie ups. The industry can help institutes in setting up their curriculum to the current needs of industry.
The other issue in India is digital divide between the urban and rural population.
Technology and technology driven services can not and should not be the privilege of urban educated. Rural India is still far away from the complicated world of network and technology. The IT can be used to do wonderful things to bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural India.
The IT sector, which has long serviced predominantly international clientele, began adapting to itself to Indian conditions late in the day. It has its own challenges of geopolitical and geosocial challenges.
Frequent power shortages, widespread literacy, reluctant flow of capital & poor PC penetration have compounded the issue.
70 Percent of India’s one plus Billion population needs are very basic – transparency in price and market information, organized land, social justice, healthcare, farming goods subsidies etc. IT can help address few of these needs to some extent by creation, storage and transmission of electronic data in all forms.
However the government and bureaucracy in India have kept pushing for introduction of better ICT infrastructure in country. Today dozens of NGOs and corporations are working independently to find applications for technology in rural India to reduce the digital divide.
India is gaining a prominence in the IT outsourcing. However, interpretation of outsourcing has changed over a period of time.
Initially it was process of delegating activities which were not part of organizations prime agendas. However, outsourcing today has a whole new prospective. Now we see outsourcing where full ownership of their product, in all aspect of product life cycle like ideation, R&D, prototyping and testing are outsourced.
The outsourcing product development stand to around $11 Billion in India today. Expectations are still bigger since todays $150 - $200 Billion global IT market is expected to grow further in spite of US market slowdown.
This brings us to an important question. Will technology education in the country be able to keep pace with tomorrow’s manpower requirement? Currently we have 1.6 million people employed in IT and ITES domain (with around 6.6 million people indirectly linked to this service) and it is estimated that five times that number will be required in next 6-7 years.
While the numbers by themselves are worrisome, the quality of the talent is even more critical. As of now, the talent pool is almost running dry, with companies fighting amongst themselves for right talent. With around 0.5 million engineers graduating from various universities, demand supply should not be that critical. However fewer that 10% graduate are actually employable or come with proper combination of technical expertise and soft skills (communication, teamwork and leadership abilities). One solution to this would be more industry institute tie ups. The industry can help institutes in setting up their curriculum to the current needs of industry.
The other issue in India is digital divide between the urban and rural population.
Technology and technology driven services can not and should not be the privilege of urban educated. Rural India is still far away from the complicated world of network and technology. The IT can be used to do wonderful things to bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural India.
The IT sector, which has long serviced predominantly international clientele, began adapting to itself to Indian conditions late in the day. It has its own challenges of geopolitical and geosocial challenges.
Frequent power shortages, widespread literacy, reluctant flow of capital & poor PC penetration have compounded the issue.
70 Percent of India’s one plus Billion population needs are very basic – transparency in price and market information, organized land, social justice, healthcare, farming goods subsidies etc. IT can help address few of these needs to some extent by creation, storage and transmission of electronic data in all forms.
However the government and bureaucracy in India have kept pushing for introduction of better ICT infrastructure in country. Today dozens of NGOs and corporations are working independently to find applications for technology in rural India to reduce the digital divide.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Innovative VAS for Telecom industry
Innovative solutions a key to success for Telecom industry
By Purushottam Darshankar
India has become one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. The other side to this growth is that ARPU’s (Average Revenue per User) have been correspondingly declining year on year. The average industry ARPU has fallen from Rs. 375 for Sept ’05 quarter to Rs. 347 for June 2006 quarter. (Source: Report by Internet and Mobile Association of India)
This is where the role of new Value added service (VAS) comes into picture. Indian operators are facing cutthroat competition and with the call rates in India being one of the cheapest in the world, the margins are very low. Therefore they are looking at VAS as the next wave for growth to maintain their profit margins.
As rightly said by Telecom expert ,” If telecom industry does not take command of change and Innovation, then there will be no future for telecom industry. The ubiquitous services that delivers personalized and location aware data would be a key to retain loyal customers for telecom operators “
Telco’s can follow different business models to generate revenues by hosting m-commerce platform, LBS (Location Based Services) platform for enterprise as well as consumer market.
By Purushottam Darshankar
India has become one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world. The other side to this growth is that ARPU’s (Average Revenue per User) have been correspondingly declining year on year. The average industry ARPU has fallen from Rs. 375 for Sept ’05 quarter to Rs. 347 for June 2006 quarter. (Source: Report by Internet and Mobile Association of India)
This is where the role of new Value added service (VAS) comes into picture. Indian operators are facing cutthroat competition and with the call rates in India being one of the cheapest in the world, the margins are very low. Therefore they are looking at VAS as the next wave for growth to maintain their profit margins.
As rightly said by Telecom expert ,” If telecom industry does not take command of change and Innovation, then there will be no future for telecom industry. The ubiquitous services that delivers personalized and location aware data would be a key to retain loyal customers for telecom operators “
Telco’s can follow different business models to generate revenues by hosting m-commerce platform, LBS (Location Based Services) platform for enterprise as well as consumer market.
State of mobility in Indian financial services
State of mobility in Indian financial services and why industry is bullish on mobility
By Purushottam Darshankar
In India, financial institutions, especially commercial banks such as ICICI, HDFC have long been early adaptors of mobile technology. Early on, they adapted mobile SMS (short message service) messages and short code services, but recently have been quick to integrate line of business applications into their operations.
ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank has launched iMobile, a mobile banking platform on mobile phones. iMobile facilitates internet banking transactions on mobiles phones. Customers can now transfer funds to ICICI and Non ICICI Bank accounts just with the click of their mobile. The application covers Savings bank, Demat, Credit Card and Loan accounts. Customers can also pay their utility bills and insurance premium through this facility.
Mobile banking is generally a extension of a bank’s online banking web presence that provides a unique opportunity to user to use their device as banking instruments. However mobile payments and mobile wallet are far more sophisticated and requires many additional components to be successful. In Mobile payment and mobile wallet they act as your credit card or cash. The mobile wallet is combination of NFC (Near field communication) and data services that creates additional services for consumers.
Japan is the only country in world which has well adapted to mobile banking system with 30 million handsets equipped with NFC capabilities. India has long way to go and financial institutes need to build a trust in Indian consumers.
The insurance world in India is dramatically different with lot of new players emerging and insurance agents are centered on serving customers who have damaged properties or experience the automobile accidents. The key differentiator for insurance company is the relationship with customer and how well the insurer services their customers. In India insurance industry has been considered as laggard in area of mobility and other emerging technologies. The reason is mainly due to storage of insurance information housed in legacy systems known as dreaded mainframe.The tools used in their day-to-day life in insurance industry have been paper forms, pen, and cameras. However, mobile device are capable of combining all those manual functions into one converged solution that has online and offline capability. The user can still be able manage his day-to-day functions at accident sites that do not fall under network coverage area. The data captures in electronic format can be synchronized with back end system once the network coverage is available. Not only it allows the insurance company to quickly settle claims but eliminates the paper based processing so common in industry today. The claim adjuster can process claims an average of six times faster than when using traditional paper based processing system.
By Purushottam Darshankar
In India, financial institutions, especially commercial banks such as ICICI, HDFC have long been early adaptors of mobile technology. Early on, they adapted mobile SMS (short message service) messages and short code services, but recently have been quick to integrate line of business applications into their operations.
ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank has launched iMobile, a mobile banking platform on mobile phones. iMobile facilitates internet banking transactions on mobiles phones. Customers can now transfer funds to ICICI and Non ICICI Bank accounts just with the click of their mobile. The application covers Savings bank, Demat, Credit Card and Loan accounts. Customers can also pay their utility bills and insurance premium through this facility.
Mobile banking is generally a extension of a bank’s online banking web presence that provides a unique opportunity to user to use their device as banking instruments. However mobile payments and mobile wallet are far more sophisticated and requires many additional components to be successful. In Mobile payment and mobile wallet they act as your credit card or cash. The mobile wallet is combination of NFC (Near field communication) and data services that creates additional services for consumers.
Japan is the only country in world which has well adapted to mobile banking system with 30 million handsets equipped with NFC capabilities. India has long way to go and financial institutes need to build a trust in Indian consumers.
The insurance world in India is dramatically different with lot of new players emerging and insurance agents are centered on serving customers who have damaged properties or experience the automobile accidents. The key differentiator for insurance company is the relationship with customer and how well the insurer services their customers. In India insurance industry has been considered as laggard in area of mobility and other emerging technologies. The reason is mainly due to storage of insurance information housed in legacy systems known as dreaded mainframe.The tools used in their day-to-day life in insurance industry have been paper forms, pen, and cameras. However, mobile device are capable of combining all those manual functions into one converged solution that has online and offline capability. The user can still be able manage his day-to-day functions at accident sites that do not fall under network coverage area. The data captures in electronic format can be synchronized with back end system once the network coverage is available. Not only it allows the insurance company to quickly settle claims but eliminates the paper based processing so common in industry today. The claim adjuster can process claims an average of six times faster than when using traditional paper based processing system.
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