Geo messages for SIM cards

Dmitry Namiot

Moscow State University

2011

Location based services

• 600 billion text messages per year in the US ask "where are you?" – as per Location Business Summit 2010 data.

• A huge amount of mobile services is actually being built around this question so their main feature is user’s location exchange.

Location based services

• In the most cases it is implemented as the ability for the mobile user (mobile phone owner) write down own location info in the some special place (special mobile application).

• But it means of course, that user must be registered in this service (download some special application).

• And even more important – everyone who needs this information must use the same service too.

Location based services

• Our idea: add location info to the standard messages (email, SMS)

• No more special applications

• Location is a link in SMS or Email – it is like a signature in email-clients

• SMS applications are doing this for years: deliver data as links

Geo Messages: schema

• Get Cell Id data from SIM card

• Provide web page (via SCWS) with links to external web service

• External service converts Cell Id info into geo data

• Service responds with web page with an appropriate URI schema: mailto: or sms:

How does it work

Geo signature

• Signature is a link to the map• Landing page: contains an

appropriate map and some geo-targeted information(advertising)

• No extra applications and/orservices

• Direct link (URL) added tothe message

Mobile web mashup

• SCWS servlet: local information

• Opencellid.org: geo data for cells (latitude, longitude). Actually, and provider for geo data could be used.

• Google Static Maps

• URL shortening (e.g. bit.ly)

• URI scheme (sms: mailto:)

How does it work

• SCWS servlet requests local information• Servlet creates a link to our mashup• Mashups accepts cellid, mcc, mns and

obtains latitude/longitude• Mashup creates a link to the map and

shortens it• Mashup publishes messaging links (sms:

and mailto: ) with short URL

How does it work – with landing page

• SCWS servlet requests local information• Servlet creates a link to our mashup• Mashups accepts cellid, mcc, mns and obtains

latitude/longitude• Mashup creates a link to the map OR Mashup creates a landing page and shortens its

URL – here is the difference: geo-target advertising!

• Mashup publishes messaging links (sms: and mailto: ) with short URL

Geo Messages approach

• It is a part of common solution provided for smart phones (HTML5 mobile web, Android application) and Java phones (J2ME application).

• See http://servletsuite.com/geomessage/

• With SIM cards based implementation it works for legacy phones too

Advantages for SIM-cards based solution

• Supports legacy phones• Natural integration for mobile internet and

messaging (SMS): location info is a link • Could be pre-configured by operators. E.g. add

contact links for some special destinations (emergency, service office, insurance company etc.)

• Peer to peer location sharing – there is no external server with user’s data

Future development

• Geo Messages uses default SMS and Email clients (via URI schemes)

• It opens potentially the ability to add location sharing functionality right to messaging clients (e.g. the similar manner SMS clients add graphical symbols for example)

Conclusion

• service proposes a new way for the location info exchange: peer to peer sharing via messaging

• service does not introduce a yet another social network or service.

• Supports legacy phones• deploys existing and very popular channels (e.g.

SMS) for sharing locations • mobile web mashup, that could be easily extended