Acision and Seeker propose emergency notification system

Stuart Corner
Monday, 27 April 2009 10:01

Business IT - Technology

The core Seeker Wireless technology derives position information from the relative signal strength of nearby base stations, but Drane said it was also able to integrate position information from GPS when available and from WiFi hotspots, for WiFi enabled cellphones. "GPS is highly accurate but if your are in an urban canyon or a shopping centre it does not work, and most mobile phone calls are made from indoors."

Acision and Seeker Wireless have already implemented a system, in Singapore that combines their respective technologies, in partnership with SPH Search, a subsidiary of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). It is claimed to be the world's first commercial fully integrated GPS – cellular – WiFi location system. Rednano Locate is a mobile application downloaded onto the phone that allows consumers to perform a location search on more than 100,000 vendors through SPH Search's directory of business listings.

To use WiFi base stations for location information the locations of these must first be mapped and once this has been done the system keeps an updated inventory of base stations and locations from data delivered from users' handsets. Dekker said the initial mapping of Singapore's WiFi hotspots had taken just two weeks.

Dekker said Seeker Wireless and Acision had only recently started trying to initiate discussions with Australian state and federal government bodies to interest them in the potential of using the technology for an emergency notification system. "It is still early days yet and we are trying to understand what stage everybody is at, but I have just found out that COAG is trying to drive something forward."

Dekker suggested that once the basic system was in place it could be exploited to deliver a wide range of non-emergency service applications such as weather and traffic warnings. "To make this work you could set it up as a bureau service and make it available to the relevant people. It is not a massive cost compared to the amount of money that is being poured into the NBN, Dekker concluded. "All this needs is the political will for someone to get behind it."