Does Your Cell Phone Know Where You Are?

December 1, 2006 GPS World

Move over, cameras — to be really high-tech, a cell phone needs GPS.

Several signs indicate the GPS handset market is on the brink of a tipping point, leading to popular adoption by the average consumer via cell phones.

In October, QUALCOMM announced that it has reached the 200-million milestone in shipping mobile handsets worldwide with its gpsOne assisted GPS (AGPS) technology. This shipment total over the past few years demonstrates that "consumers are increasingly demanding location services on the wireless device that most carry with them all the time," said Rob Rovetta, senior director of product management for QUALCOMM Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless technologies. gpsOne enables a variety of GPS services to be accessed through cell phones, from turn-by-turn voice commands to points of interest, applications for athletes in training, real estate services, and security for parents of children or those with elderly relatives.

Ecosystem. Market research firm In-Stat defines the new market environment as an "ecosystem for location services." With this ecosystem established, the increasing number of GPS-enabled handsets "will drive location services to being a mainstream cellular services component and revenue source," according to Allyn Hall, director of wireless research for In-Stat. "The number of GPS-enabled chipsets shipping in handsets is orders of magnitude larger than the number of chipsets being shipped in personal navigation devices, and the difference will only grow over the next few years."

Other research firms predict strong growth in the consumer GPS market overall. In September, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) revised its July forecast for 2006 portable navigation units (not cell phones) shipped, from more than 1 million units and an annual growth rate of 88 percent, to about 2 million units and an annual growth rate of nearly 183 percent (FIGURE 1).

"Since July the portable navigation space has heated up rapidly," said Steve Koenig, senior manager of Industry Analysis for CEA. "Based on feedback from manufacturers and the sales channel, we now believe annual 2006 shipments of portable navigation products could easily top 2 million units, resulting in more than $1 billion in shipment revenue."

Factory to U.S. dealer shipments of portable navigation devices
are projected to reach 2 million in 2006.

Strong Growth. Whether in a dedicated device or a GPS-enabled cell phone, research firms predict strong growth for GPS. A third research firm, U.K.-based IMS Research, projects a significant increase in the number of GPS-enabled handsets shipped in 2008, coupled with an increase in AGPS network roll-outs worldwide.

Its report, "GPS in Cellular," provides forecasts for various cellular technologies. GPS unit revenues are forecast to have a compound annual grown rate of just under 40 percent over the next four years.

Patrick Connolly, senior GPS analyst at IMS Research, agrees that government mandates play a role. "A number of factors are coming together to finally drive the growth in the cellular market that has been forecast for years. With the Japanese mandate coming into effect in 2007 and a number of American, European, and Asian wideband CDMA operators poised to rollout AGPS networks over the next two to three years, the future looks promising for GPS in the cellular market," Connolly said.

From a design point of view, IMS Research forecasts that the move towards single-chip design will accelerate next year, with the goal to reduce cost, size, and power consumption to meet the constraints of increasingly over-burdened handsets.

Services Offered. As GPS proliferates in the cellular market, IMS Research sees huge potential for increased revenues for network operators and application service providers offering GPS-based location services. "[That's] something KTF telecommunications in South Korea has recently demonstrated, recording strong return on investment for location services in a market where GPS-enabled handsets are commonplace," Connolly said.

Connolly did issue a word of warning. "If GPS-enabled handsets and location services are to take off beyond mandated regions, there needs to be a dedicated push to make end-users aware of the exact services available to them, coupled with competitive pricing models....Service providers need to offer more than sat-nav solutions and highlight other benefits of having GPS."

Software Solutions Sketchy

Despite software-based GPS performance improving significantly over the past two years, hardware implementations will dominate the cellular market until 2010, according to the IMS Research report, "Worldwide market for GPS in Cellular — 2006 Edition."

While companies such as NXP, RFMD, and Nordnav have taken software GPS implementations to new levels of performance, software GPS implementations are not without their problems.

Software GPS addresses two major design barriers to large-scale uptake in handsets: size and cost. Not only is it possible to reduce the silicon footprint, the bill of materials is greatly reduced, making possible GPS proliferation in handsets.

Yet while processors in handsets are improving, they still aren't powerful enough to execute GPS software efficiently. GPS signal processing requires a high CPU load and interrupt rate, which is only exacerbated by the demand for faster time-to-first-fix (TTFF) with greater sensitivity. Manufacturers are reluctant to add anything to the baseband processor, as it involves much longer development cycles and can result in interference with voice communications.

As a result, current solutions cannot approach the level of sensitivity, TTFF, or power consumption associated with advanced hardware solutions. By contrast, falling prices, high sensitivity, relatively good performance, and ease of implementation have made hardware GPS implementations the technology of choice for cellular handsets.

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