Geographic Messaging Service

Wouldn't it be great if your mobile phone could tell you when a friend is close by or when you are close to a restaurant that your friend recommends? Or, how about getting specific advertising messages based upon your preferences and physical location? These are all examples of location-based mobile messaging.

Geographic Messaging Service or, in short GMS, is a new media in mobile messaging, aimed at providing similar functionalities to its subscribers. It is the delivery of messages associated with a particular geographic region to subscribers, when they are in that region. It allows subscribers to leave or receive SMS or MMS where they matter. For example, you may perhaps “leave” a shopping-list near a super-market as a reminder and “receive” it the next time you in the vicinity of that super-market. Or, perhaps a coffee-shop selling overpriced coffee could send across discount coupons to your mobile when you enter the region. GMS basically builds on the existing SMS and MMS services and provides for a more geographically targeted peer-to-peer communication. The term GMS was coined by researchers at the Bell Labs.

Earlier this month it was announced that Alcatel-Lucent innovation has turned the promise of GMS into reality with their 5130 Geographic Messaging Services Platform (GMSP) and their suite of Geopepper applications. The GMS platform solves the challenge of excessive bandwidth requirements. Service providers can now efficiently generate income by offering their customers location-based social-interaction, information access, and targeted push advertising on mobile devices.

Lets learn a little more about this new innovation and technology!!

What is Geopepper?
Geopepper is a novel Location-based Social Networking Service for cell phones that delivers content and buddy alerts around your current location.

So, you have a cellphone and are walking around your neighborhood or lounging at your pet coffee shop. You are bored. How would you like to receive a small number of messages on your cellphone that are relevant to your location? Like:

• Your classmate from grad school or your customer contact is nearby (only when they and you want)
• A mobile “post-it” note your friends have left for you telling you to try a new chinese restaurant (or, to avoid it!!)

The Geopepper application, using the GMS platform opens the doors for all these features, and then some. The technology underlying GMS is called GeoFencing – detecting when a cellphone crosses a virtual geographic fence.

What is GeoFencing?
GeoFencing is all about figuring out when you enter an area (“geographic fence”) like a block around Hard Rock Cafe or the airport. When a mobile phone user crosses a given “fence”, it triggers the delivery of an SMS/MMS message that is relevant to that individual and that location, such as the promotion for a particular store, or the presence of a friend or associate in that area. While this sounds simple, doing it automatically can drain out your cell phone battery, network bandwidth, computing resources etc. There are special techniques in the GMS GeoFencing Engine that minimize the resource drain and make large scale geofencing applications possible. Geopepper is just one of the services possible on top of GMS. Several other next-generation mobile applications such as “proximity” marketing and social networking, “kid-tracker”, and other opt-in mobile applications developed by service providers, content suppliers etc. can now be made possible.

The GMSP is in trial with both mobile network operators and enterprises, including the Indianapolis Colts of the U.S. National Football League, which is currently testing the 5130 GMSP and its Geopepper social networking application as a way to extend the MyColts.net social networking community.