QUALCOMM Incorporated, a leading developer and innovator of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and other advanced wireless technologies, announced last week that a total of more than 200 million mobile handsets worldwide have shipped featuring the Company’s gpsOne® Assisted-GPS technology.
gpsOne technology supports a wide range of compelling location services that include a variety of consumer, business and personal safety applications. These location services are made possible by the ubiquitous and accurate positioning of the gpsOne solution, the most widely deployed GPS-based location technology in the world.
"More than 200 million GPS-enabled handsets have shipped over the past few years, demonstrating that consumers are increasingly demanding location services on the wireless device that most carry with them all the time," said Rob Rovetta, senior director of product management for QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies.
"QUALCOMM’s gpsOne technology puts high-performance GPS into handsets, making possible a wide variety of services that make day-to-day activities simpler, safer or more fun for the wireless user."
"We are seeing that the ecosystem for location services is now largely established, which — combined with the ever-growing number of GPS-enabled handsets — will drive location services to being a mainstream cellular services component and revenue source," said Allyn Hall, director of wireless research for In-Stat. "The number of GPS-enabled chipsets shipping in handsets is orders of magnitude larger than the number of chipsets being shipped in personal navigation devices, and the difference will only grow over the next few years."
The gpsOne solution provides the position-location technology behind the vast majority of the location services at more than 50 major network operators worldwide. Services include:
• mapping and navigation, with turn-by-turn voice commands and local
points of interest
• applications for athletes that use GPS positioning to calculate and
record real-time metrics such as distance, speed and calories burned
• location-aware real estate services
• security applications that verify the whereabouts of loved ones.
Eliminating the need for expensive, standalone GPS devices that require regular updates, mobile handsets powered by gpsOne technology have the ability to bring valuable tools to wireless users at substantially lower cost and, in many cases, with greater functionality.
The gpsOne A-GPS solution is integrated into most of QUALCOMM’s Mobile Station Modem(TM) (MSM(TM)) chipsets to enable manufacturers to more cost-effectively offer positioning capabilities on wireless devices. The gpsOne solution is part of the Launchpad(TM) suite, which also includes integrated multimedia engines to offer application developers the ability to leverage advanced graphics, video and audio capabilities that further enhance a location application.
Numerous leading developers have taken advantage of the gpsOne solution on MSM chipsets to offer a wide range of compelling applications currently available on global wireless networks.
As part of its complete package of position-based products and services, QUALCOMM offers QPoint(TM) location-based services server software and set of accompanying tools and services to enable mobile network operators to deploy high-performance, compelling location services.
QUALCOMM works with system integrators to permit them to offer the QPoint solution to operators and hosted providers. QUALCOMM’s QPoint and gpsOne solutions provide one of the most complete, integrated mass-market location services solutions available today.
For more information, please check www.qualcomm.com