They went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his bone and Jill came tumbling after… And now they need medical attention and must locate a medical center soon. How far is the nearest hospital? How do they get there from the accursed hill? What is their current location? They need location-based services (LBS). “What is LBS?” asks Jill.

Location based services are locationspecific information, such as restaurants, ATMs, hospitals, traffic conditions, and weather information, provided to mobile users within a measurable radius from a specific location. This ‘mobile content’ is obtained using GPS (Global Positioning System) which utilizes a constellation of satellites in Earth’s orbit that transmit precise microwave signals, enabling a GPS receiver in a mobile device to determine its location, speed, direction, and time. LBS has its roots in GIS (Geographical Information System)technologies, communication technologies, and the Internet with all its information. Its architecture consists of five basic components: mobile devices, positioning, communication network, service providers, and content providers, all of which interact in the processing chain of the service request sent by the user. If Jill had a GPS-enabled cell phone, it is capable of establishing her location (positioning) such that when she seeks emergency services (communication network) from that location, the agent providing the voice telephony service (service provider) directs the request to a database (content provider) containing the emergency services information for that location, which is then returned to the cell phone along with the corresponding navigation instructions.

According to the recent press release by ABI Research, GPS-enabled handset market is expected to generate over $100 Billion in revenues in 2012.

The recent spate of acquisitions and mergers in the LBS market is a sign of an increasing commercial and popular interest in location-awareness. Nokia, a mobile device manufacturing major, has acquired Navteq, one of the leading providers of comprehensive digital map information for automotive navigation systems, mobile navigation devices, internet-based mapping applications, and government and business solutions. Tele Atlas, another popular mapping data provider has been acquired by TomTom. ABI Research industry analyst Shailendra Pandey observes, “The ongoing consolidation in the mobile industry … gives a clear indication of the plans and commitment of industry players to address the GPS-enabled handset market."

There has been a parallel swell in the development of various location based technologies. Google has launched “My Location” which uses information broadcasted, not by satellites through GPS but, by cell towers to find the location of a mobile device using the triangulation method. SiRF, a manufacturer of GPS chipsets for navigation systems, has licensed Skyhook’s WPS (Wi-fi Positioning System), a single positioning system based on the Wi-fi network for wireless carriers that combines the best of GPS and Wi-fi technology.

First services are already available for mobile phone users, such as Family Finder, weather information, and city events. Phone makers now support GPS phones for social networking and mobile gaming. GyPSii Symbian is a geo-location and social networking platform that combines location-based news and services, such as search and friend-finder, and user generated content-creation and sharing. Nokia has given its official authorization to the Symbian application for its N95 and 6110 Navigator mobile phones.

The Universal Address System developed by NAC Geographic Products Inc. has introduced a highly impressive unified representation of an address, such that the entire Earth can be digitized using the latitute, longitute, and altitude information of any given place. An eight character universal address can uniquely specify every building in the world and a ten character universal address can uniquely specify any square meter. MLBS is a comprehensive wireless LBS powered by Natural Area Coding (NAC) technology and Microsoft’s MapPoint web service.