Well, I am sorry to report that 3-months following my first attempt to get smart2go to live up to it’s hype on my Windows mobile 5.0 based HP hw6965, a new version is out and nothing has changed….

Still the same inability to let me set my preferences first before assuming I am using GPRS and a bluetooth GPS.

Still the same ability to lock up with no chance of escape other than the dreaded hard reset.

Impressively, I can’t even get into the main menu this time around.

This is definitely not an application that is going to rock your LBS world anytime soon.

The announcement last month that Nokia was releasing a free mapping application called smart2go for users of Nokia and Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones was great news. What was even more exciting was realising that there were Australian maps available for download. The technology was purchased by Nokia from a German company called Gate5.

Unfortunately the excitement has stopped there for now. Nokia has taken the google-style beta release approach one step further and released software that is embarrassingly buggy.

I installed and ran the software only to realise that it did not recognise the built-in GPS in my ipaq hw6965.
It was also apparent that their standalone maploader application (used for downloading maps offline instead of via your mobile carrier) was just as buggy. It took a few attempts to commence downloading the Australian maps, which for some reason only downloaded at about the same rate as dial-up (some achievement given I’m on ADSL2). Five hours later the 56Mb download completed.

As I had selected the option to save maps directly to the mini-sd I use in my ipaq, I was hoping that I would still be able to play with the application after bypassing the search for a bluetooth GPS (which seems to be a default start-up function that can’t be turned off).

No such luck, I’m afraid! After pressing cancel a few times to stop the bluetooth search and entering the main screen, I was unable to bring up any locations using the search interface provided. For some reason it appears as though the Australian maps were not registered.

I’ve fired off some feedback to the smart2go.com website and hopefully we’ll see a slightly more rewarding beta release sometime soon.

I will then provide some commentary and screenshots of what should be a groundbreaking move for Nokia in 2007.

Update 08/04/2007: Just to check that I wasn’t being unnecessarily critical, I uninstalled and re-installed the application (including the maps downloaded onto my SD card). I started the application and entered “Sydney” in the location search screen and it worked. Manually scrolling the map seemed ok, however, searches for suburbs or street addresses would always return zero results (even though I could manually traverse the maps and eventually find the locations I had tried to search for). The graphics do render nicely and overall the application looks nice, however, it isn’t usable in its currently crippled form. Basically it’s a buggy application that really isn’t going to excite anyone in Australia just yet (or anyone with in-built mobile GPS Receivers).

As a sign that we’re about to enter an election year here in New South Wales, Premier Morris Iemma today announced that the state Government intends to provide CBD-wide free wireless access by 2008. As reported by news.com.au, the Government will put out a tender early in 2007 to cover the CBD and six other key business centres.

Given the planned timeframe one would hope that they hold out for Wimax, as it would not only arguably reduce their expenditure but also facilitate true LBS entrants entering the marketspace, courtesy of the roaming support that the 802.16e Wimax standard brings.

Given the relatively small number of commercial players in this space, it’s likely that the lucky winner will be one of the following;

Unwired - They’ll be crossing their fingers that the state Government recognises the benefit of waiting for them to upgrade their existing network to Wimax in 2007 and the subsequent rollout of consumer gear in 2008. Unlike the Telcos, Unwired would not be risking channel conflict given this is all they offer.

Telstra - I’m sure they’ll have a stab at it, until they realise that it will conflict horribly with their NextG 3G network expansion. Come to think of it, they may just win it to ensure that Unwired doesn’t have an opportunity to leap miles ahead courtesy of their Wimax network. I wouldn’t put this past them.

Optus - Optus already have a significant investment in Wifi hotspots around NSW. I’m sure they will look for an opportunity to finally make money out of their service although the conflict with their 3G network is likely to put them in a similar position as Tel$tra.

Azure - They’re definitely up there as a company that would benefit significantly from winning such a deal. They already leverage existing Telco hotspots as part of their large WiFi hotspot virtual network, so it would be all positive for them.

Of course I’m also excited about the separate news in this article that Perth, Western Australia will see significant investment in their broadband capacity (to the sum of $1 billion over 10 years). This is great news indeed for the state that the East coast seems to forget exists. WA is a leader in so many ways but doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. You only need to look at a company like metromesh to know that WA is switched on to the world of location based services.

Go Perth!

Update 06/05/2008: This is dead. Yep, you heard me. Dead! Our state government announced that they’ve killed off their plans for rolling out free wireless yesterday. Granted this could be because Unwired was a frontrunner (maybe?) and they’ve since been bought-out by Channel 7, who also announced today that they’re even further behind in their plans to rollout Wimax here in Australia.  So perhaps the plan still has a pulse and the government is merely killing time (pardon the pun) but the bad news is that the good news would be that we have to wait another year to find out what they’re up to and whether it does in fact involve flooding our local universe with ubiquitous, free Wimax goodness.

Having operated in “stealth mode” for nearly two years, Australian company Seeker Wireless has revealed that it is in the progress of deploying its high-accuracy mobile location based services enabling technology to a number of European mobile network operators. Formed in 2003, Seeker Wireless has developed a means to reach sub-100 metre location accuracy in high density areas on existing GSM handsets.

Seeker Wireless is currently working with as-yet-unnamed European telcos to firstly deploy their technology as a means for improving the accuracy of “Homezone” mobile services. Homezone services allow operators to introduce flat rate charges when customers are using their mobile handset within a set radius from their “home” environment. Previous Homezone solutions have offered accuracy in the vicinity of 500 square metres, which effectively leaves the operators open to “revenue leakage”, as customers continue to pay home rates when they are well outside of the agreed area. The Seeker technology appears to not only deliver benefits to end customers but enables operators to develop a model to fund further moves into location based services.

A recent industry report indicates that Seeker differentiates itself from existing solutions by, “performing the positioning calculations using an application on the SIM card, rather than using Cell-ID, GPS or other location technologies. The solution does not require a gateway mobile location centre (GMLC) but only requires a standard connection that uses SMS, GPRS or 3G to connect the mobile device, which then connects to the wireless gateway and the Seeker Server,” (Ovum, 2006).

Responding to a query from, “Geographically Challenged”, Andrew Grill - General Manager and Global Head of Sales of Seeker Wireless, indicated that he was, “relocating to London next month … such is the European demand for our product.” Grill indicated that numerous public announcements are imminent and that a new look Seeker website will be launched shortly. Grill opens the Seeker offices in Picadilly, London, next month.

According to Grill, a follow-up move into the Australian LBS sector is targeted for 2007.

Two months go by and not so much as a whisper of anything LBS related in Australia. After such a promising start to the year, I’ll take the glass-half-full attitude and assume that this means we are only moments away from a big LBS announcement.

For those interested in some of the upcoming handheld GPS units available in Australia, AustralianIT published a write-up this week on some Navman and Mio GPS-enabled units. Of special interest is the Navman Navpix software. Allowing photos to be easily geo-coded, stored and shared Online, so that you can later retrieve and navigate to the chosen location, this is at least a step in the right direction. I would have preferred Navman to make this software publicly available but with everyone nowadays choosing the infamous Dotcom “race to world wide web domination”, it comes as no surprise. When will you learn people? Open things up and new opportunities are just around the corner!

In the meantime, why not dream of what could be and take a look at some recently, slightly-less-than-mobile, Australian Google mash-ups from Google Maps Mania.

Now, back to my dreaming… …..”Google & Telstra in magic mobile partnership” ……”Optus and Google team up”…Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well, I've been saying it for some time now. Google had to be up to something! The tremors were starting to increase in strength and today we have finally seen Google maps extended to include Australian road level maps. Surprise, surprise!….they're using PSMA data!

Although not yet covering all of Australia, we're only a short period away from having detailed road level maps across the continent. There is still some work required to bring the search / routing capability online but its surely not far away.

Read more about this significant event in the history of Australian LBS, here on smh.com.au

If Telstra/Sensis aren't already nervous, they definitely should be now!

If my memory serves me correctly, based on previous Google announcements, we will soon see this joined with Google local and a mysterious local Australian content provider….hmmm….any guesses who that may be?

It was pleasing to read today that Google may soon rollout a local presence in Australia targeted in direct competition to Sensis. With various companies recently announcing local search services, from the uninspiring customised Google search interface to be provided to customers of listed wireless network operator Unwired, to the much more exciting promise of delivering Google local downunder, things are certainly brewing.

The Australian newspaper reports that Google is serious about moving into the Australian market and is in negotiations with an as yet unnamed local partner to provide localised search services (21/04/06). Hopefully the chosen partner will be able to offer features that are clearly differentiated from the already familiar offerings of Sensis and Ninemsn. Interestingly, News Limited (publishers of "The Australian&quot also recently released their own offering truelocal.com.au, without any significant fanfare, into what is now already an over-crowded Australian business services search market.

Personally, I can't yet find any compelling reason to use more than one of these services. As much as I hate to say it, unless something mobile comes my way that is generally available and cheap to access, I will prefer to use Sensis' White or Yellow pages from the comfort of my home in the rare event that I need to look up a business phone number. It gives me exactly the same information as any other offering currently on the market plus the added benefit that I actually remember the URLs.

Ninemsn and Truelocal.com.au may all be sources of localised data but they're certainly not yet mobile and nor is their content compelling. If Google is planning to fill these gaps and bring the dimensions of on-demand mobile search with more compelling content than business information, they'll be a clear winner. With Sensis still off in la la land delivering their location based services only to a minimal audience of Telstra network subscribers, Google could very well snatch market share just as a plethora of more sophisticated Wifi and GPS enabled devices are due to be released into the Australian market.

Good luck Google!

Today the newspaper, “The Australian Financial Review”, published an article on the growing popularity of both portable and in-vehicle navigation systems in Australia. Heavily quoting various sources at Telstra’s Sensis division (who else could they quote?), the article predicts sales of 150,000 portable units and 60,000 in-car systems during 2006.

Sensis is reportedly seeing revenue increase by 20% or more year-on-year. Unsurprisingly, a representative of Australian retail electronics firm Dick Smith indicates that the increasing popularity is attributable to word of mouth. There is no doubt that location based services are a viral technology. Sensis’ In-Car navigation product manager, Peter Girigs, indicated that the Australian market is growing at about 200% annually. That’s great news for the two providers of street level mapping data in Australia.

Funnily enough, the authors do allude to the fact that Telstra / Sensis has what is bordering on a virtual monopoly in the provision of electronic mapping data. They even went as far to say that they had contacted Australian competition watch-dog the ACCC but word back from their spokesperson was that they had not received any complaints about Sensis and there was no action being taken with respect to reviewing its market position.

Incidentally, I have seen the increasing market popularity represented first hand at the numerous local electronics stores in my area. Where 18 months ago there would have been one or two Navman / Mio products on the shelves, there are now close to five or six different portable navigation system manufacturers.

All of them have Sensis data installed.

I agree absolutely with Glenn Latham’s recent contribution to LBSzone.com (08/02/06). As do I on many occasions, Glenn asks why should we be paying ridiculously high data charges? It seems counter-intuitive that a business need to achieve market saturation is being addressed by exhorbitant pricing on new 2.5/3G network data services. It would be hard to argue that we’re still in the “early adopter” phase of mobile telephony, in which companies will typically charge a premium. Either device manufacturers are in cahoots with Telcos (supporting more bells & whistles that consume serious data) or the two segments are seriously out of whack. Either way, consumers are being led down the garden path.

I’m sure the synergies are obvious to the corporate accountants, however, without any Telco explaining the payback calculations for their mobile data networks why should we believe that such high costs are justified? I do understand the need to achieve suitable returns on investment, however, I’m finding it difficult to stay excited about the 2006 range of Wi-Fi and GPS enabled mobile phone handsets when I imagine the ARPU our Australian Telcos are targeting to milk out of me.

My simplistic mental arithmetic tells me that a greater volume of users would potentially yield similar financial results and would eventuate as a result of more attractive market pricing. My key argument is that by significantly increasing your audience, you also create further opportunities for value-added services such as LBS. Many LBS concepts will require a reasonable concentration of users in a particular area to achieve their potential. In the current market, particularly in little old Australia, that is still a long way off.

A casual peruse of various Australian Telco websites today once again highlighted prices for service “value-adds” that are disproportionate to the value that they really add.

With Optus recently announcing the availability of the Multimap and Microsoft Mappoint web service based FindA service, it was good to see a period in which usage was free. What was disappointing, however, was that it was only for one month, following which users are slugged AU$4.95 per month to access your typical ho-hum map-enabled directory service.

There is the option of paying for data usage instead of a flat monthly fee but given the service is graphically oriented, this is probably not a wise move for the geographically challenged. Telstra, as would be expected, don’t offer a flat rate for their equivalent service. It is advertised as “free *”, with the cost to the user coming in the form of data charges.

Arguably, this is yet another example of the hidden cost of map data in Australia. For Optus, royalties to PSMA, Multimap, Microsoft and obviously themselves result in a price, that by today’s standards, should get me about an hour’s worth of air time with the astronauts in the International space station. What Telstra’s excuse is, I don’t know. Perhaps i-mode is really killing them on royalties to DoCoMo.
I can’t see anything remotely appealing LBS-wise across the Telco offerings, especially for the prices they are asking. It is probably time to temporarily put my dreams of a Navteq / Google partnership on the back-burner (until they get over their video phase) and start looking towards an Australian equivalent to Navizon.

If you have not heard of Navizon, here is the 25-words-or-less introduction….

1. Download software to your GPRS, GPS and/or WiFi enabled mobile or PDA

2. Aimlessly wander the streets automatically detecting wireless access points or mobile phone towers in your defined area.

3. Automatically upload information on the location of these devices to a central server.

4. Use that information along with everyone else’s to identify where you currently are, based upon a database of known WiFi access points or mobile tower locations.

5. If you’re technically oriented, ‘wire’ this up to your normal mapping s/w instead of using a GPS receiver (useful for indoors, areas of poor GPS reception or if you don’t have a GPS receiver)

OK, so that’s more than 25 words but who ever could meet that limit and still make sense anyway!

For a more literate description, Navizon have quite a detailed technical overview.

Update 15/02/2006: I note that Optus now also offer their FindA service for $0.55c per 20 minutes usage.