Kellogg on Technology and Innovation

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Wireless Value Chain Contd...

Outlook for 3G: The 3G technologies will face many challenges in the near future. These include slower download speeds, pricing issues, limited connectivity to other applications, competitive technologies like WLAN and 2.5G compression, financial problems about infrastructure companies, which are responsible to develop the necessary infrastructure for 3G services. Location Technology: Other promising technologies apart from 3G services are location technology with its new functionality and support from Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has made location based services (LBS) in the US mandatory for locating distress calls. A part of wireless communication industry, the location based services are becoming one of the competitors for 3G services in the near future. The market for location-based services is estimated at $5bn in the next three years with the market size of $600m. Some of the companies like Verizon wireless; Vodafone and NTT DoCoMo are busy promoting this technology while other smaller players in US and Europe are also participating in that promotion. The parties involved in the location-based services are:

Equipment manufacturer: A set of companies, which will be providing the devices to final users. Companies like Global Locate, Ericsson, Motorola and others are providing handheld devices to users.
Location Technology: These are companies who will be providing technology to run the devices. Companies, which are in this segment, are Cambridge, Positioning Systems, Cell-Loc and Snap Track. For example Cell-Loc, a Canada based company is developing devices, which can provide driving maps to users devices if they are lost in the way.
Application Developers: Developing various applications for location based services. For example, TimesThree, a company working on the location technology provides location content to the internet portals to track the various information like child and pet tracking, billing services and many others.
Location based service providers: These companies provide end information to the users devices as well as some companies like TimesThree, Cambridge and Positioning Systems.
Wireless Carriers: These are companies, which allow content flow from the source to the users. The companies here include Sprint, AT&T and Verizon in the US, Orange and Vodafone in Europe, Airtel in Spain and NTT DoCoMo in Japan.

Applications of Location Technology

Location based services benefits almost all sectors including B2C, B2B and B2G while on the consumers' side including C2C, C2B and C2G. In the wireless technologies category, there is another technology picking up and with its unlimited networking capabilities, it also has a great potential in the near future. The technology is Bluetooth, a technology based on radio transmission. The advantage of this technology lies in its small size, range, speed and portability. It is a miniature radio, which can be installed, in any computing device as well as in any home or office appliances.

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