Marconi, through its Wireless Business Unit, and SnapTrack, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of QUALCOMM Incorporated and provider of Assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS) location systems, announced an agreement to cooperate in the development of an enhancement to Marconi's Planet EV tool, the next-generation version of its network planning and optimization product family. The two companies say they are cooperating to empower Planet EV with its newest module, the Base Station Almanac (BSA) Planner. The company says the module will improve the accuracy and efficiency of the deployment and maintenance processes for QUALCOMM's gpsOne hybrid A-GPS location systems for mobile phones and other wireless devices and optimize overall performance and accuracy of the gpsOne system. "We're very pleased to be working with Marconi to provide this powerful BSA generation capability to the wireless community," said Dr. Kamil Grajski, general manager of SnapTrack. "This tool will allow carriers to more quickly and efficiently create and maintain accurate BSAs, and ultimately deliver optimized location performance to their customers for E9-1-1 emergency location calls, and for location-based services." The companies say the BSA Planner solution will automatically generate an initial Base Station Almanac, and will provide maintenance and updates of the BSA by incorporating data and information from Planet EV and other carrier network planning and maintenance tools and resources. According to the company, using Planet EV, operators will also be able to obtain real-time performance information from Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs), which helps synchronize the BSA with actual network configuration information as it changes from day-to-day. In addition, the company says the new tool will help improve the hybrid aspects of gpsOne performance by providing accurate, up-to-date network configuration, base station geometry, and RF environment information to SnapTrack's SnapSmart(TM) Position Determination Equipment (PDE), when calculating a mobile's position. "This key enhancement to our planning and optimization portfolio is a critical component in providing a complete and effective network solution in the E-9-1-1 and LBS space," said Chip Wagner, head of Marconi's Wireless Business Unit. "Furthermore, it demonstrates the flexibility and openness of Planet EV's architecture for the integration of other industry products and data that complement and augment our solutions. We are very pleased to be able to deliver a tool that will improve crucial service performance, while cost- effectively opening the door to additional revenue opportunities." About gpsOne
With over ten million gpsOne-enabled mobile phones sold to date, QUALCOMM's gpsOne solution (featuring SnapTrack technology) offers location data availability under the most challenging conditions, whether in concrete-and-steel high-rises, convention centers, shopping malls or urban canyons. Using a hybrid Assisted-GPS approach that utilizes signals from both the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation and CDMA cell sites, the gpsOne solution enhances location services availability, expands terrain coverage, accelerates the location determination process, and provides better accuracy for callers, whether during emergency situations or while using GPS-enabled commercial applications, says the company. gpsOne protects privacy with its built-in Location at Hand(TM) feature, allowing users to control their location information in most commercial implementations. gpsOne is supported for IS-95 / CDMA2000 and GSM / GPRS / UMTS. About Planet EV
Planet EV is Marconi's next generation of planning and optimization software solutions. Planet EV provides a new suite of RF planning and optimization capabilities, including network modeling and support for enterprise application integration, in addition to tools for increasing the overall efficiency of wireless networks while maintaining quality of service (QoS), according to the company. It also enables the integration of industry partner applications and customer in-house tools and data, and provides a future-proof, PC-based architecture for rapid and custom feature development, as well as a smooth migration path onto a single, extensible software platform. About SnapTrack
Headquartered in Campbell, California, SnapTrack pioneered Wireless Assisted GPS(TM) and owns patents that are fundamental to the cost-effective deployment of Wireless Assisted GPS-based location systems. SnapTrack's Hybrid Wireless Assisted GPS system enhances QUALCOMM's gpsOne location solution and MSM position-enabled chipsets offer anytime, anywhere, accurate, high-speed location of a wireless caller, even inside buildings where conventional GPS does not operate. The Company's Wireless Assisted GPS products support standards-based implementations on synchronous and asynchronous networks and include the SnapSmart(TM) location server software system, the SnapCore(TM) multimode GPS solution and the SnapWARN(TM) GPS reference data feed service. For more information, please visit www.snaptrack.com.