Category Archives: Location Based Services

What is it that you do?

I’m asked this question surprisingly often, “Alan, what is it that you do?” My stock answer is, “I wander the world helping people.” Which generally results in a wry smile from those who know me; else a questioning or annoyed look from someone who was expecting a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. When I […]

Restconn 2017

I attended Restconn 2017, this weblog provides quick review and some context on what it means to the industry. I’ve known Ivelin, Jean and Amit since 2004/5; they are the core team behind Mobicents (the open source project now called Restcomm) and they founded Telestax which leads Restcomm. Back in 2004/5 there were lots of open […]

Telecom Application Developer Summit

Most of my working life has been spent building telecom applications within telcos (BT), vendors (Lucent, Cambridge Technology Partners), in my start-up Teltier (mobile presence applications), and working with many tens of telecom application developers as an independent. Based on this experience, telecom application developers exist and are grossly under-served by the telecom industry.  A […]

New Report: The Services Domain. Market Status, Case Studies, Analysis, and Recommendations

An operator is composed of three domains: Network, IT and Services.  Historically we’ve treated the services domain as something that can be solved by a piece of technology, called the SDP (Service Delivery Platform).  This has resulted in the industry’s slow response to the competitive threats of web-based service providers, which are now starting to […]

SDP Asia, Mobile VAS, Smartphone Apps & OS, and Convergent Billing Conference. 27-30 March 2012 Singapore

The 6th SDP Asia Summit is being held in conjunction with 3 other conferences: Smartphone Applications & Operating Systems (OS) Asia 3rd Mobile Value Added Services Asia OSS/BSS & Convergent Billing Asia The report “The Services Domain. Market Status, Case Studies, Analysis and Recommendations” report discusses the importance of the services domain to the future […]

Recent Workshops

A common theme on many of my projects is providing either at the start or end of a project an in-depth workshop. The focus of these workshops is varied: providing a fast-track understanding on new technologies or business models; separating hype from reality; explaining the unsaid agendas of the suppliers and service providers; providing a […]

Business Case for Opening The Network

I came across this old presentation today on the business case for operators to open their network, shown below, some of the material is over 4 years old, especially on developer needs.  Yet operators continue to ask developers what they need and developers provide the same answers, perhaps operators continue to ask in hope of […]

The need for a Telco Handset API: Using SUPL (Secure User Plane Location) and its failure to revolutionized LBS (Location Based Services) as a case study

Secure User Plane Location (SUPL, pronounced supple) in essence enables applications to directly talk to the AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) unit on the mobile phone, without the need to pay the operator for a location dip.  SUPL potentially side-lines the operator out of providing location information; without the need for a costly, complex and […]

Is there resurgence in LBS (Location Based Services)?

Growth in LBS (Location Based Services) customers in North America (NA) last year (’05 to ’06) was roughly 150%, from 1.5M to 3.8M customers.  In ’05 NA LBS revenue was roughly $450M with Sprint accounting for 70% of that revenue.  Today Verizon and Sprint account for over 80% of operator LBS revenue in North America.  […]