BSNL set to score a first with LBS

location based services


BSNL will offer triple play services and also looking at offering audio and video streaming which has a huge market in the country.
Location-based services (LBS) are a way to send custom advertising and other information to cell-phone subscribers based on their current location. The cell phone service provider gets the location from a GPS chip built into the phone.
In UK, LBS services use a single base station to determine a phone’s location.
One example of a location-based service might be to allow the subscriber to find the nearest business of a certain type, such as an Italian restaurant in India. The ability of the restaurant to send an invitation to bypassers has also been mentioned in the message.
These services were launched in the late 1990s in few countries including US, UK though it became illegal in the United States to send any message to the end user without the end user specifically opting-in.
A K Sinha, chairman and managing director, BSNL said, “We are planning to launch the LBS soon in the major cities and towns. The entire system is ready for offering the services and waiting for the right time to roll out LBS service.”
A subscriber would be able to access the important locations on mobiles through SMS, MMS and GPRS by LBS and would be as cheaper as SMS service.
Telenity, a US based provider of next-generation services for communications networks has deployed the solution for BSNL. The application is being customised according to the needs of the operator as it can also customise the application on regional languages according to the preference of the operator.
Experts said that LBS application can be rolled out once the maps and specific locations of the cities are available.