Location-based Services = Big Payout for Small Cells

June 25, 2014

By Ernest Worthman —

Interesting news from the location-based services (LBS) sector. There is movement in the acquisition arena. Nokia’s mapping and navigation company just announced plans to acquire real-time predictive analytics company, Medio Systems, to extend its location-based services capabilities.

There have been other acquisitions, and associations happening in this arena as well. Ruckus Wireless acquired an indoor location and analytics company last year, and Motorola recently partnered with four companies on LBS that integrate Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Halbherr

This has small cell written all over it. And it also has the Internet of Things (or Internet of Everything as some manufacturers call it) written all over it. According to Michael Halbherr, CEO of Here. “We are entering the age of what I call ‘cognitive mapping,’ in which maps will understand their environment and anticipate people’s intent in order to deliver interactive and smart location experiences.”

Such intelligent and interactive LBS services will be able to create contextual maps and dynamic LBS that change according to the situation, and deliver them to individuals and businesses autonomically. Examples would be delivering restaurant recommendations to a person going to lunch or dinner and providing drivers with routes that match their driving style based on real-time conditions. It would also facilitate enabling businesses to personalize their offerings to customers.

With tens of millions of connected devices and hundreds of billions of interactions on the go, LBS-based services are poised to deliver highly personalized maps and location services for whatever people face throughout their day. It is also a huge, potential revenue base for pushing advertising since it can provide potential advertisers with intimate knowledge of where people are going and what they intend to do.

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Ernest Worthman is the Editor of Small Cells magazine.