Location-Based Services - an Overview of the Standards
P. M. Adams, G. W. B. Ashwell, R. Baxter · Institution of Engineering and Technology eBooks · 2004
Interest in location-based service (LBS) standards began in the 1990s with the more advanced second generation cellular systems - particularly in GSM. There has been a general drive from mobile operators to increase their average revenue per user (ARPU), and by the late 1990s it was clear that the cellular markets were fast approaching the saturation point in terms of customer penetration rates. Therefore the only way to further increase the turnover of mobile operators was to raise their ARPU by the successful provision of more value-added services, such as the LBS. Mobile systems, such as GSM, have always been heavily driven by standards so as to achieve full interoperability between different suppliers as well as international roaming on to foreign networks. The focus for GSM standards developments through out the 1990s was the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Special Mobile Group (SMG). However, for certain specialist functions, such as the development of end-to-end protocol solutions between mobiles, ETSI SMG has worked with other groups such as the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Forum.