Telefonica Moviles has begun carrying out technical testing to evaluate integration of the GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite location system into its dual GSM network. The aim of the trials is to consider future applications and services that GPS and GSM are able to provide together.
The tests are being carried out using Enhanced GPS SnapTrack technology, owned by the American company of the same name. This new and revolutionary technology is being examined by Telefonica Moviles, one of the world's leading cell phone operators, along other members of the SnapTrack GSM Test Group (STGTG) – comprised of major European and American GSM operators. NTT DoCoMo of Japan has already announced plans to commercially deploy this new technology later this year.
SnapTrack's Enhanced GPS system works inside many buildings, cities or cars, and in places where normal GPS fails to perform. In addition, it enables mobiles to be located in just a few seconds with a margin of error between 5 meters and 50 meters.
The location itself, services associated with the position of the mobile, and chargeable applications based on the position are some of the uses that the integration of GPS with GSM may be able to provide.
These include making emergency calls, improved roadside assistance, personal direction finding, improved taxi dispatch and vehicle fleet management, mobile directory assistance, and even keeping track of pets.
On activating the SnapTrack system – thanks to a new chip that the mobile handset has inside – the cellular network sends a message to a server, which in turn tells the handset where the GPS satellites actually are in its zone.
The new software inside the mobile takes over GPS signal capture and calculates the distance from all the satellites that mobile can see. All this information is sent to a server that processes the data in a few seconds and determines the location of the mobile.
Telefonica Moviles, with more than 7.5 million customers, is the leading mobile phone operator in Spain and the sixth largest in Europe. A little over half the customers use the pre-pay method. 6.7 million are currently users of MoviStar, the dual GSM service, while the rest, totalling some 800,000, are MoviLine subscribers.
