Location Based Services in India: Where are you?
Imagine partying in a pub and you get a beep that your friend (or maybe, ex-gf) too is present in the same pub!
Well, Location based service is in and India will very soon witness a rise in apps that are built for local market.
Location Based Services: A Primer
Location-based services (LBS) are wireless ‘mobile content’ services which are to provide location-specific information to mobile users moving from location to location. Unlike mobile (or mobile internet) services, LBS doesn’t require you to enter your area details. [wikipedia]
Typical Location Based Services applications fall under following categories:
- B2B (Business to Business) : e.g. resource tracking (fleet management, courier tracking etc)
- C2B (Consumer to Business) , i.e. Proximity-based actuation services like searching for a business/restaurant etc.
- B2C (Business to Consumer), i.e. Proximity based notifications (push/pull) : Receive targeted ads, location based billing/discounted ads etc
- C2C (Consumer to Consumer): Share your location/status with friends, Track your friends etc.
As per a research conducted by iCrossings, most US mobile Internet users are interested in task-oriented content.
Users picked maps, weather, local information and news above entertainment and sports as the content categories they searched (i.e. more task oriented usages compared to generic info based ones)
Challenges in LBS:
One of the most significant challenge in LBS is privacy. Users need to opt-in to use the service. Apart from piracy, most of the users will not be comfortable with “somebody” tracking their behavior (whereabouts, consumer behaviors, and financial transactions, mobile usage etc).
LBS in India
According to industry estimates, 40-50% of handsets sold today are GPRS-enabled. Even then, few people who own GPRS sets use them to access the Internet.
Apart from the low internet usage in mobile devices, LBS is India has not yet taken off in a big way because of the following reasons:
- Lack of reliable GIS data : volatile infrastructure, lack of fine grained deterministic data
- Limited and ever changing Infrastructure
- Too many languages, location names do not follow any convention (there is a formal name for a place and then, there is the commonly used name.)
- Cost/Maintenance of devices.
LBS players in India
BSNL has launched it’s Location Based service in East Zone and is currently offering enterprise services as well as consumer services:
- Enterprises can locate, monitor and manage their mobile assets and employees in a secure way using a simple Web browser named ‘Real time fleet and asset management’.
- ‘Friend finder’ which alerts subscribers when one of their friends in their buddy list is in close proximity to their location or vice versa.
- ‘Location-based advertisement’, broadcasts advertisement/promotion information to subscribers.
- ‘Location-based chatting service’ that enables users to communicate and/or meet someone with same interests within the same vicinity. [source]
On the other front, MSN is in talks with Indian telcos to penetrate in Indian mobile market.
The company wants to partner with carrier networks to develop an intuitive search system in which users need not provide the location data. For example, a mobile user can search for the nearest hospital in case of emergency, without specifying where he or she is. Based on a method called triangulation, which determines the phone’s location based on signal strength to the nearest cell tower, and using an existing database, the system can throw up search results listing nearby hospitals. For high-end handsets with built-in GPS (Global Positioning System, which pinpoints location by using satellites) chips, location can be determined within 10-30ft. Other GPRS-enabled handsets can be “triangulated” to within 50ft of the location. [source]
BSNL plans to roll out it’s LBS service nationwide by December 2007.
Successful LBS implementation will result in new advertising channel for advertisers who are facing the heat from TRAI’s DNC registry.
What’s your take on LBS?
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from all this information wat question arise in mind is do we have good qulaity map available in india…..when our cities are changing on daily basis thaks to metro lines, flyovers , malls , multiplexes..i s there any company who has invested in the survey teams to keep updated the city’s geographical data..other wise all these services will be messed up .. what do u people have to say regarding this???
[...] Read: Location Based Services in India – the complete story Share some [...]
[...] Location Based Services [...]
For Location Based Service, Bangalore based http://www.MobiTrack.in provides location base service for India. With and Without GPS at low cost.
Regards
Manoj
BangaloreIT
Herecast ,www.herecast.com can be a good model for india
asset gps tracking…
umm it really depends….
Is this kind of location based services used in any of the country?
only big players can enter iinto LBS in india becoz of in availbility of LBS data.
Indians need to change their thinking to use such features, as well as telcos have to make such services chepear .
[...] from the BREW talk, the event will also have a demo on LBS App (read more about the LBS opportunity in India). [Details [...]
[...] do you think has an edge in the local search market? Could LBS be a [...]
For Location Based Service, Bangalore based http://www.MobiTrack.in provides location base service for India. With and Without GPS at low cost.
Regards
Manoj
BangaloreIT
Location based services in India is no longer a dream, Broadway India has tied up with Gypsii to provide location based serivce in India.
Gypsii is world’s leading mobile social network service can support all the feartures from friend finder, navigation to location based advertising.
The Gypsii software can be freely downloaded from http://www.gypsii.in on the mobile, the catch is Gypsii works only on Symbian S60,iphones and blacberry.
BroadwayIndia will be providing affordable GPS enabled handsets for Indian users.
There is a potential oppurtunity for the mobile service providers in terms of business. Mobile users will get the required information at very low cost. Ever changing infrastructure in india is the problem to tackle.
[...] Location Based Services [...]
dear sir I am yallappa sherakhane I want some information of bsnl towers site in hangal adress wise and site wise.