Navigation Opens the Door for Future Location Based Services

 Berwyn, PA, October 29, 2007 – TruePosition, Inc., a leading provider of wireless location technologies and solutions and a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation, today announced the findings of a significant research study undertaken with IDC. The research reveals clear opportunities for location based services in the United States.

 “Location based services have been slow to take off in the United States, but these research findings clearly show that the US market is getting good traction,” said Robert Morrison, Senior Vice President of Market and Business Development.  “Due to the rise in navigation systems in cars and websites that provide directions and points of interest, both consumers and enterprises in the US are now grasping the concept of location based services, and they have very specific ideas about how they should work.”

 The study asked consumers and enterprises in the US exactly what they want and expect from the following location based services: Child Monitoring, Medical and Senior Citizen Monitoring, Pet Tracking, Navigation, Traffic, Stolen Vehicle Recovery, Social Networking, Local Search, Fleet Tracking, and Workforce Management.

 Some of the highlights of the IDC research include:

 Navigation

When selecting the features that were most important to mobile navigation services, people in the US ranked the ability to use the service in dense metropolitan areas first.  The ability to use the service nationwide was second and re-routing was the third feature.

 Mobile Local Search

One key outcome revealed that more than half of consumers are receptive to advertisement-sponsored local search services, which could prove to be a significant new source of revenue for mobile operators.  Local search on cell phones looks to be the LBS low hanging fruit for the wireless operator community, but only if they can agree a free advertising based business model.  Only 25% US would consider paying for the service.

 Social Networking

Security looks to be a key factor in determining whether location-enabled mobile social networking will take off.  Consumers are unlikely to subscribe to these types of services unless service accessibility can be limited to authorized users and a process is in place to keep out strangers.

 Family Monitoring

Anxious parents seeking peace of mind look to be an important market for LBS as 35% of respondents admitted to being likely or very likely to subscribe to child locator services in the next 12 months.

 Overall, consumers revealed that they were extremely receptive to location based services, providing they perform at the optimum levels – essentially working wherever and whenever their mobile phone worked.  The majority of the respondents wanted the services to work in several different types of environments (outdoors, indoors and in vehicles), desired sub-50 meter accuracy, and required a sub-15 second response time.

 Enterprise Services

From an enterprise perspective, LBS user preferences between the three geographies were remarkably similar. Workforce management and fleet tracking services were highlighted as the most prevalent uses of LBS by businesses.  Respondents to the survey viewed productivity improvements (74% in the US) and cost savings (69% in the US) as the key benefits.  Also, businesses ranked the safety and security of its workers as the most important feature, with ease of implementation coming in at a close second.

 Overall, the performance levels for enterprise services echoed the consumer findings with end-users consistently requesting premium performance in terms of accuracy, reliability and response times.

 “The data TruePosition and IDC uncovered together is truly compelling,” stated Scott Ellison, Vice President of Wireless and Mobile Communications at IDC.  “As location-based services continue to gain momentum, service providers will need to better understand their customers’ requirements for these services.  This research study certainly is at the forefront of that effort.”

 “New regulatory pressure and increasing subscriber demand will continue to lay down the accuracy gauntlet for LBS.  This study clearly indicates that our potential consumer and business customers will accept nothing short of a perfectly performing, accurate service,” added Morrison.  “TruePosition is dedicated to ensuring that our location based services, and the underlying positioning technologies that power them, are in line with end-user expectations.”


Additional findings and research methodology can be found in the IDC White Paper sponsored by TruePosition, "Opportunities for Location Based Services in Consumer and Enterprise Markets," Doc #209059, October 2007.

 About TruePosition

TruePosition is dedicated to the development and implementation of advanced wireless location products, services and devices, providing complete solutions to support the wireless location needs of the global marketplace. In addition to providing industry leading core location technologies, TruePosition supports all levels of the wireless location value chain to offer turnkey solutions.

 TruePosition's foundation was built on the development of advanced location systems, which include handset, network and hybrid location solutions. Today, TruePosition can offer hybrid location systems that incorporate Cell ID, Enhanced Cell ID, Uplink Time Difference of Arrival, Angle of Arrival, and Assisted GPS to power the next generation of location-based services. TruePosition is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to its Liberty Capital Group (NASDAQ: LINTA, LINTB, LCAPA, LCAPB).  For more information, visit www.trueposition.com.