Location Based Services

10/06/2007

Location Based Services

1. Executive Summary

Mobile phones and the internet have become highly popular these days, the have become a necessary commodity, they have revolutionized the communication between people off late. It is not long before almost everything can be done using mobile phones and internet. One of the important services that will enable the users to use their mobile phone for a whole range of things other than just communicating is Location Based Services (LBS), they are basically 'information services accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the location of the mobile device' [1]. Here the consumer/customer uses his mobile device search for different services; this is done by a wireless-IP service that uses geographic information to serve a mobile user. LBS is basically an intersection of three technologies namely information and communication technologies, the internet and the Geographical Information Systems (GIS).

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LBS is a rapid growing field today, it has captured the attention of the developers and has circulated a new energy into the businesses. The LBS has a wide range and its technology is improved at a fast rate. According to [1], there are five important components in LBS namely, mobile devices, positioning, communication network, service providers and content providers. All of these components play a pivotal role in LBS. There are two different ways by which we can categorize the LBS, PULL based services or PUSH based services. The PULL service allows the users to pull information to them from the place they are located in, whereas the PUSH based service is where the services are determined with respect to position of the mobile phone (wireless device). One of the major advantages of the LBS is that it makes people drop in for services rather...