Subject: Re: [SIP] geographical location

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 16:32:03 +0100

>> Anyway no Cellular Operator has offered such information as far as i
know.

>Is this such a hard problem? If the operators do not offer this
information,
>after-market competitors may possibly do this job as well. There are
>actually websites (sorry, I cannot find an illustrating bookmark right
>now) that maintain such translation info.

Ummm, the cell map is continously changing. There are also "mobile cells"
(the ones installed for certain events and dismounted afterwords), but if
you ever remember any of those websites, please send it to me. I'm curious.

It seems that operators are reluctant to provide an updated matching list
between CellIds and geographical coordinates, they argue that competitors
could obtain your coverage area map quite easily, analize this information
and offer better coverage in areas where roamers use to switch on their
terminals (airports, holiday areas, etc.) In GSM the main business is
traffic from roamers, it is such a big deal that AT&T has recently decided
to buid an overlay GSM infraestructure in USA to offer coverage to GSM
roamers.
So since nobody has been able so far to convince operators to ease
location-based services boom by providing this info, the only chance would
probably be goverment regulators force operators to provide such info.

Of course from the technical point of view it should not be a problem at
all (not even codify the geographical coordinates into the cell-id)

Sorry since this email does not discuss SIP-related staff,
and thank you for your comments, jiri

javier f.

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