Radiolinja

Mikko J. Salminen, mikko.salminen@radiolinja.fi

Katarina Ekholm, katarina.ekholm@radiolinja.fi

Radiolinja was the world’s first cellular operator opening GSM service on the 1^st of July 1991. Since then Radiolinja has been in the forefront in providing new innovative services like SMS, interactive SMS (e.g. 7-language dictionary), location aware SMS services (e.g. weather, services in Finland and shipwrecks along the Finnish coast line), etc.

Applications for position dependent services exist today, for example the Yellow Pages and weather services. Radiolinja offers today position dependent services, that are based on SMS and where the customer types the position e.g. in the form of street address, longitude and latitude or town.

As the applications for position dependent services already exist, we need to quickly start deploying positioning in our network. The positioning method itself should be transparent to the application.

We should not sit waiting for the "final GSM positioning method" as the way to proceed, since standards and implementations for E-OTD and TOA positioning methods are emerging slowly and the implementation costs for cellular operators are high.

Radiolinja has developed a cellular positioning system that does not need any investment in the present network infrastructure: only a Smart Location Server (Unix or NT server) is needed in the network and small (about 2-4 man weeks) SW modification to the handset is needed. Same SLS can be used both in SMS, WAP and Fleet management/tracking applications.

To get a fast enough start in location aware application, e method based on Cell ID and measurement data provided by the terminal is suggested. As the positioning method should be transparent to the applications, the method can be changed as more developed methods emerge.

These issues are mostly affecting mobile users i.e. at least WAP society. However, there will be mobile web applications also available when GPRS provides high data rates and displays on handsets.