Mobile Phones - Location Awareness

Emergency Service

Location awareness function applying on mobile phone network has been hotly discussed; due to the surveillance aspect has potential harmfulness of personal privacy and confidence. In current GSM networks, a user is positioned approximately; it is no doubt that the service providers need no knows where a particular user is, in order to connect a phone call. In the future, location awareness function could be the most important ‘Killer-app’ for the next generation’s mobile phone networks (or so-called 3G).

In the viewpoint of public interest, location awareness mobile phone service could be seen as an essential feature in contemporary society. In America,

The deployment of positioning capability in mobile phone handsets for emergency purposes had been federally mandated for 1 October 2001. However, the industry pushed back on this date and the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) revised the schedule to complete the rollout of this service in 2005 (Krenik, 2002:157-158)

Currently, GPS and satellite systems are combined with GSM network; alone with the development of capacity of mobile phone and the pubic concern it is likely to see future mobile handsets are location sensitive personal device.

Location-based services

Location awareness is now viewed as a new potential new market. Information services, location-based advertising and even matching service are examples. On the matters of location awareness services, privacy is a major concern. In one hand, as Krenik argues that ‘…this is a rather coarse position estimate and is only used by the servicing network’ (2002:158), therefore, services which are provided to users within a particular position, such as football stadium, would base on the idea of servicing. In the other hand, precise positioning information which is needed for servicing could be a threat of personal privacy.

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References

Harkin, J. (2003), Mobilisation:The Growing Public Interest in Mobile Technology [Online] Available: http://www.demos.co.uk/MOBRft_pdf_media_public.aspx [Accessed 9 Aug. 2004]

Krenik, W. (2002) ‘Wireless User Perspectives in the United States’, Wireless Personal Communications [Online], vol. 22, issue, 2, pp.153-160. Available: Kluwer Journals Online Wireless Personal Communications Database [Accessed 26 Oct. 2004]

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Wei-Ming Chiu 11:12, 29 Oct 2004 (EST)