|
With value-added services becoming major revenue grossers for
most telecom operators, the operators can easily use the knowledge of location
of the user to offer them useful VAS, gain customer loyalty and also increase
profitability. Such services that are based on location of a mobile user are
known as location-based services (LBS).
State-owned BSNL has taken the lead in offering location-based
services (LBS) in India, as it is expected to launch the services in two regions
by the end of the year. The telecom PSU has tied-up with US-based Telenity,
which deployed the solution in nineteen circles of BSNL across the country.
What is LBS?
The technology behind LBS is positioning, and the most widely
recognized system for this is global positioning system (GPS). However, there
are other means of positioning in addition to GPS, such as network-based
positioning, which is based on various means of triangulation of the signal from
cell sites serving a mobile phone. The serving cell site can be used as a broad
location of the user.
LBS are those services that are enabled with location.
Ashutosh Pande, managing director, SiRF Technology India, believes that India is
a big market for social networking and quotes an example to illustrate his
point. "Imagine, you receive an SMS with the text lets meet for
dinner and with the message you get a map, with the location of the sender
being highlighted. It will bring an additional context of where the sender
is and, hence, where you can arrange to meet," he explains. Pande further
adds, "Location is really about bringing context to content".
Even though LBS is a new entrant in the market, India is one of
the fastest growing LBS markets. "The Indian market was about $22 mn last
year and is expected to cross $500 mn in next 3-4 years," says Sujit Kumar,
director, CL Infotech.
Location-based Services include point-of-interest and navigation
assistance, gaming, location-based information services, personal security,
asset and fleet tracking, business transaction with location information, apart
from peer-to-peer networking.
LBS in India
As one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world, the Indian
market is seeing rapid growth in the consumer category under which friend
finder or service finder are the applications expected to be successful
in India.
Besides navigation, the security segmentnamely senior citizen
locator and employee finderhas emerged as a clear favorite, says Pande.
"With India moving into organized logistics, this is becoming a big
business category and with over twenty companies doing vehicle tracking/ fleet
management solutions, this is another winner," he adds.
Tackling Roadblocks
Many of us would like to believe that government regulations have been one
of the roadblocks in LBS adoption in India. However, contrary to popular
perception, Kumar believes that government regulation is not hindering the
adoption much; instead it is the cost of the device. "High cost of the GPS
device or high-end cell phone which only supports LBS at this point of time are
not able to justify returns on the investment for many applications," he
says. Low cost location-based devices would mainly drive the applications, Kumar
adds.
Since 2004, a lot of positive changes have been made by the
government to expedite adoption. In 2004, GPS was removed from the classified
list of defense equipment that allowed free import of GPS without the need for a
license from the information and broadcasting ministry or clearance from the
defense ministry.
The MapIndia policy was released in 2005 to decriminalize the
possession of a digital map by a person. However, even though the policy was
released in 2005, the directive is still unclear and all maps created need to be
certified by the Survey of India.
The recent move by the customs department to tax GPS-enabled
phones at the same rate as a regular phone has resulted in the sale of
GPS-enabled phones. "However, non-cellular location platforms like personal
navigation device (PND) or portable media player (PMP) are still characterized
as radio navigation devices and attract a very high duty. And, reduction
of duty to consumer levels will truly provide great impetus to the adoption of
LBS in India," Pande says.
Huge Potential
Indian telecom operators are focused on acquiring voice subscribers
and increasing the number of subscribers. They would have to see that location
enablement of these voice subscribers will allow them to migrate some of
their customer base to a voice and data plan, hence increasing their ARPU.
"Vertical services like security phones will allow operators to tap into
two segments that are not fully within their reachchildren and senior
citizen. And, this is a huge segment that is being ignored by operators,"
says Pande.
However, an ecosystem of vendors is being created in order to
bring in LBS; right from companies that are creators of location, to devices
vendors and application developers, the list of companies is growing. Feeding
content to these devices and applications are mapping companies. Therefore,
there is a huge ecosystem working toward making location as ubiquitous as time.
India has a huge potential, with the LBS market expected to
cross $500 mn in the next 3-4 years. And, a population of more than a billion
with a tele-density of 11% is indicative of a huge market. The key to make LBS a
successful service lies in identifying high value services and tailoring these
services to address the Indian market requirements.
Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
| 
Print
Comment
Email
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Twitter
