Location-Based Services To Improve Caller Experience
While there's been a lot of misguided talk about just how lucrative the location-based-services market will be for applications and services based on telling people just where they are, it appears one company is taking a slightly different path. First, they're not using GPS, but rather a fully software-based solution that determines location by looking at the "radio frequency signature" of an area. I don't quite understand how this is different that triangulation methods already in use, but that's not the more interesting part of the article anyway. It turns out the company in question is also promoting their offering not for being able to beam McDonald's coupons to people as they pass by a McDonald's (the always popular example of a location-based application), but to enhance the caller's experience. The idea is that a carrier can more easily locate trouble spots and dead zones using this system, while also granting higher quality of service to more important/higher paying customers (something that many might object to). While it's unclear if these uses will become popular, it's about time that someone started focusing on location-based services that weren't just about geo-targeted advertising or spying on your loved (or hated) ones.
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