Andrew Jagoe's new book explains in detail how all these tasks are possible using mobile location services (hereafter referred to as MLS) technologies. MLS is not only about tracing a user's location, but extends to offering efficient and compelling real-time services for people. This book shows how this can be done. It offers a high-level overview of concepts behind MLS and the technologies that enable them, as well as insightful case studies and interviews with industry leaders.

This review looks at MLS from the point of view of the GILT industry. Although it is not written with the GILT audience in mind, the book is a valuable guide to business opportunities that MLS will eventually bring to this industry.

The business case

The Internet has already made our world smaller; now the various real-time mobile services of MLS will bring everybody even closer together. The combination of MLS applications and third-generation mobile phones will be compelling enough to revive currently depressed economies and boost sluggish markets. Although the automotive industry and mobile operators are the primary forces driving the MLS market, other industries such as travel, entertainment, advertising and marketing - and GILT - will also play a significant role in popularizing MLS among a larger audience.

MLS technologies are divided into two categories: services designed for in-vehicle use and those designed for users of handheld devices. The book opens with an overview of location-based services used by the automotive industry in North America and how they provide useful services to drivers through in-vehicle devices. This section also includes some basic information about mobile phones, wireless technology, GPS, MLS basics, mobile location servers, spatial analysis, etc.

The first half of the book also deals with general interest topics such as security, user privacy, personalization and profiling. The existence and personalization of user information are one of the bases of MLS, so protecting user information from unauthorized use will be a crucial factor in its success. While personalization and profiling offer huge advantages to the user, they also offer an unprecedented opportunity for the abuse of users' information. The author emphasizes that trust is a critical factor in the adoption of MLS, and its importance cannot be underestimated.

Certain chapters will be of great interest to the business community. Various billing systems and business models are discussed for MLS and m-commerce (mobile commerce). A case study on billing technology offers a practical application. The author talks in detail about event-specific services that are likely to be popular with users, e.g., ticket-based m-commerce applications such as reservation and ticketing for travel, entertainment and parking. The role of MLS in providing emergency assistance, and medical and concierge services is also discussed.

Traffic management is another area where MLS can be very useful. It can provide valuable traffic-related information such as roadblocks due to construction work or accidents, roads with slow-moving traffic or congestion, weather forecasts affecting road traffic, etc. Central London recently implemented a system whereby vehicles entering that area will have to pay a "congestion tax." In such traffic management projects, MLS can be used in traffic monitoring as well as in offering useful services to drivers.

Providing user-centric rather than highly technical services through MLS will help boost the average revenue per user per month (ARPU), which will ultimately determine the profitability of any MLS business model.

The technical background

More than half of this 480-page book is targeted primarily at "techies" interested in MLS technologies and focuses on technical information and code samples. Several chapters cover fundamental information on radio basics, cellular networks, GPS and wireless data, as well as advanced topics covering digital map databases. Appendices contain more technical information, e.g., Geography Markup Language (GML), the LIF Mobile Location Protocol, P3P, etc. The book also includes a CD-ROM that contains related software and a collection of reference links. The use of various diagrams and charts help readers to understand the technology and how it works.

MLS and the GILT industry

Although this book is primarily aimed at mobile industry technologists, the author does focus on the importance of GILT services, especially internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n), in MLS. Most of the technologies used in MLS are based on open standards and have substantial i18n support that will ease the l10n process. Open standards such as XML, XHTML, Java, VoiceXML and WML will be used extensively in MLS. The author advocates the importance of these standards and their vital role in developing MLS applications that will run on many platforms and various types of devices. However, testing such applications and their localized versions on a range of devices is equally important to ensure quality.

VoiceXML will also be used in MLS to provide intuitive speech-based services to the user. The author draws the reader's attention to two critical l10n challenges that arise in 1) developing a voice-system that responds to various speech accents of native as well as non-native speakers, and 2) providing map databases in German, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages. Since mobile users are able to roam anywhere within a country, as well as across borders, MLS providers will need to offer effective, competitive services in the user's own language, even if the user is in a foreign location. In this regard, Europe and Asia will become large MLS markets for the GILT industry.

This underlines the critical need to continuously improve and exploit GILT technologies such as translation memory (TM) and machine translation (MT), so that localized services can be offered more rapidly. The GILT opportunities in MLS will also prove whether existing open standards like TMX and XLIFF can weather the emerging challenges in this field of technology.

The introduction of MLS will generate many business opportunities for the GILT industry. Most of the projects will be in the area of mobile content development and publishing. Creating an abundance of downloadable content (mostly related to advertising, entertainment and travel) and making it available attractively in user languages will demand creative skills and ideas from GILT professionals. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services) will be used extensively to provide rich, user-friendly location-based advertising and marketing content. Major companies engaged in the mobile business have already made available mobile content publishing kits for the content development community. In this regard, joint efforts from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and the GILT industry can help reduce the hurdles to adoption, thus making a major contribution to the success of MLS.

Who should read it

Overall, Mobile Location Services - The Definitive Guide is an excellent source of information for developers and readers with a technical background in mobile telecommunications. This book is also useful for software vendors interested in developing and deploying MLS, and for mobile service operators, content developers and executives from the marketing and travel industries. It is also a handy reference source for forward-looking members of the GILT community.

Chapter List

Chapter 1: Mobile Location Services
Chapter 2: Building a Mobile Location Services Solution
Chapter 3: The Application Server
Chapter 4: Spatial Analysis
Chapter 5: Mobile Positioning
Chapter 6: Authentication and Security
Chapter 7: Personalization and Profiling
Chapter 8: Billing
Chapter 9: Mobile Commerce
Chapter 10: Client Platforms and Protocols
Chapter 11: Mobile Location Service Applications
Chapter 12: Digital Map Databases
Appendix A: Abbreviations
Appendix B: Geography Markup Language
Appendix C: LIF Mobile Location Protocol
Appendix D: Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)
Appendix E: Internet Resources
References

Publisher

Title: Mobile Location Services - The Definitive Guide (CD-ROM included)
Author: Andrew Jagoe
Publisher: Prentice Hall (www.phptr.com)
ISBN: 0-13-008456-5
Published: December 31, 2002
Pages: 480
Price: US$49.99