Nokia, Samsung, Sony Mobile and others form In-Location Alliance, seek to boost indoor positioning technologies

Mobile giants Nokia, Samsung, Sony Mobile and nineteen other companies have combined to form the In-Location Alliance, a cooperative that seeks to drive forward innovation and increase the adoption of indoor positioning technology and its related services.

Launching today, the three mobile vendors are joined by Broadcom, CSR, Dialog Semiconductor, Eptisa, Geomobile, Genasys, Indra, Insiteo, Nomadic Solutions, Nordic Semiconductor, Nordic Technology Group, NowOn, Primax Electronics, Qualcomm, RapidBlue Solutions, Seolane Innovation, TamperSeal AB, Team Action Zone and Visioglobe.

According to the group’s press release, the Alliance is set to focus on offering “high accuracy, low power consumption, mobility, implementability and usability.” By doing this, it hopes that it will create an ecosystem that will drive innovation, enhance delivery of the technology and ensure that mobile and technology companies introduce the technology in their products and services.

Nokia, Samsung and Sony Mobile are joined by component manufacturers and developers of location-specific software. All members have committed to piloting the services that the Alliance creates, which are to be based on open interfaces and standards-based technologies — opening them for all.

With this in mind, the Alliance will form many of its solutions based on Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi standards that use existing or features that are soon coming. Pilots and business models are already being drawn up and it is expected that the first handset-based implementation will start rolling out in 2013.

With many existing technologies focused on pinpointing the location of a mobile user via GPS, indoor location services are starting to emerge with the view to help consumers navigate in shopping malls and indoor spaces. By using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi networks, indoor positioning is able to pinpoint users by triangulating distances between access points and mobile handsets.

Nokia has already demonstrated some of its indoor positioning technologies in a trial with 17 leading technology and media companies, repurposing “white spaces” from unused parts of the UK’s TV spectrum to trial location technology in a airplane hanger in Cambridge, UK.

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