CTIA: LOC-AID aggregates carrier location data to counter Google, Apple

Location-based services have been much slower to appear than some have predicted, and when they have appeared it’s been Web players – like Foursquare – or software/device makers – like Apple and Google – that have been providing the location data and APIs to help developers build their services.

LOC-AID Technologies, with deals in hand from some of the largest North American operators – including AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Telus and others – is aiming to help service providers flip that equation on its head, offering developers an aggregate database of user location information for more than 300 million mobile devices, the company announced today.

LOC-AID aims to solve the toughest problem facing carriers – enticing developers – by bringing together location data from multiple operators in one spot. That also helps developers, who can go to a single data source to acquire location data that cuts across multiple operators and devices.

Today, many mobile apps that use location get that data via an on-device GPS chip. But not all phones include GPS capabilities, and even those that do often turn it off because it tends to eat battery life. LOC-AID delivers its user location data mainly via cell tower triangulation data provided directly by carriers from the network. It augments that data with Wi-Fi network sniffing techniques in some cases, an approach also used by location competitors like Skyhook.

LOC-AID says its service is “significant because it shows that carriers are finally getting in the game,” Rip Gerber, president and CEO of LOC-AID told Connected Planet in an interview, noting that while his company doesn’t have exclusive access to carrier data, it does have a preferred relationship with many of its operator customers. “The only way to manage a large number of developers coming in and onboarding them in a safe, protected method is through a third party aggregator [like LOC-AID].”

While financial considerations vary, carriers typically get about a penny per location transaction, while LOC-AID takes a few more on each bit of data, at times adding additional intelligence such as proximity to other locations or detailed geo-coding, Gerber said. Volume discounts typically apply, so a large company doing mass marketing would pay less than, for instance, an insurance company looking for a fix on a particular user on an occasional basis, he said.

LOC-AID aims to differentiate its own business model by focusing not on “garage” developers but on large enterprises that are likely to buy a lot of location data in bulk – companies like credit card issuers, mobile ad agencies, machine to machine solution providers, and others, Gerber said.

In many ways, the third-party location aggregation business is similar to the SMS gateway business that delivered the interoperability that enabled text messaging to explode a decade ago. But the advent of the third-party location business is also different in important ways – mainly in the fact that mobile operators have made a conscious decision to work with only a few third-parties on location, not dozens as they did with SMS, Gerber said. That should help limit some of the growing pains for this new industry and hopefully speed the acceptance of location services, LOC-AID’s Gerber said.

“Carriers have watched companies like Google and Apple take developers and customers away from carrier networks,” Gerber said. “We’re helping them step up into the game.”

Carriers delivering location data to LOC-AID include AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, America Movil, TelCel, Bell Mobility, TELUS, TCS, Microsoft and Qualcomm.