Navigation the next big thing for cellphones

Stuart Corner
Monday, 11 June 2007 12:57

Business IT - Technology

First it was cameras, then music players, now navigational functionality has been flagged as the next big thing in the cellphone market. There are predictions of 42 million navigation enabled phones in use by 2012 and the iPhone is being tipped to have inbuilt GPS.

The market size predictions come from market research firm In-Stat which claims that mobile phone operators now have the ability to market a downloadable navigation application that is just as good as, if not better, than personal navigation devices (PNDs).

In-Stat says that, as a result "handset-based mapping and navigation applications could cause a major change in the overall navigation market, which is now dominated by relatively expensive standalone devices."

According to In-Stat analyst, David Chamberlain, "Unlike MP3 players and digital cameras, handset-based navigation applications provide the only low-cost alternative product in a market of growing popularity. The value proposition for handset navigation applications is very strong compared with that of PNDs and, in some ways, the functionality is superior."

In-Stat says that its surveys of US subscribers found navigation applications had "a strong ability to draw subscribers from other operators and keep them loyal." In-Stat adds: "cellular operators whose service is based on CDMA (and iDEN) have an advantage over other mobile operators in nearly every region of the world, largely because of the A-GPS [assisted GPS] technology originally driven by mandates to support E911 services."

Assisted GPS takes two forms. In one form, an assistance server can take the GPS position data from the combined phone/GPS receiver and by using much more processing power than the handheld devices provide a more accurate location which is then fed back to the handheld. In another, location information is derived by triangulation from the cellular base stations. This method provides a useful complement to GPS because it provides the greatest accuracy in urban areas where base stations are close together, and in this environment, GPS does not work well because buildings block signals from the satellites.