CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom-Cambridge Positioning Systems introduced its Cursor Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) location system in February at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France.
The company said Cursor is the first demonstrable system of its kind.
Cambridge is demonstrating the system to potential business partners-including network operators, handset manufacturers and information and service providers-using a local area network around the city of Cambridge.
Cursor is designed to pinpoint the location of GSM communications customers using Time of Arrival technology.
The Cursor technology consists of three elements, including a firmware addition to the handset, a receive-only supplement to the operator’s GSM network and the position-calculation program run in a PC server, said the company.
The system determines a caller’s location by comparing the signals from at least three independent transmitters received at two separately located receivers, said Cambridge. The two receivers are the mobile phone and a “base” receiver.
The caller’s geographic position automatically is displayed as a reference point on a digital map display at the headquarters of the emergency service operator.
Cambridge maintains that its system is more appropriate for GSM systems in local mass consumer services environments than global positioning system (GPS) products.
According to the company, GPS hardware adds significant cost to handsets and increases battery drain.
Cambridge initially plans to offer the product as a solution in the United States to the Federal Communications Commission’s mandated E911 (enhanced 911) requirements.
Geoff Morris, chief executive officer of Cambridge, said he expects Europe to follow the United States in mandating an E911 requirement.
While the company is developing a system for code division multiple access (CDMA), it has not yet done any CDMA trials on its platform.
Cambridge says it is marketing its Cursor GSM location product as a personal safety differentiator for GSM operators.
