Mobile positioning technologies and location services

In response to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wireless E-911 phase II requirement for emergency location, mobile station (MS) location testing and verification have become an important issue for wireless carriers and the vendors. Currently, the FCC ruled that carriers begin selling and activating ALI (automatic location identification) capable handsets no later than October 1, 2001 and also granted a limited waiver of location accuracy to certain wireless carriers. Since MS location information can be used for many location-dependent applications to enhance the system performance, there is also an explosive interest in the development of new location-based commercial services to add value to mobile devices. We present a summary of the location technologies that have been MS location solutions to comply with the E-911 ruling. We also discuss the emergence of MS location commercial services and address how MS location information can be used (1) to improve performance of the systems through vertical layers, and (2) to increase wireless system functionality for location commercial services.