With the rapid advancement in location tracking enabled in mobile devices, the number of consumers of location-based services (LBS) has increased by millions across the world. The Mylinex Mobile Location Center (MLC) enables network operators to create new revenue streams by:
Providing location information to third party businesses (external clients) that need fleet management services.
Eg: Transport services, financial institutions, emergency service providers, etc
Providing the location tracking service as a peer-to-peer service where the subscriber A can track the location of subscriber B, optionally with the consent of the subscriber B.
Eg: Parents tracking their children
Using the location information to provide targeted marketing to subscribers for internal or external promotions.
The Mylinex MLC is a converged solution that couples both the Gateway MLC (GMLC) and the Serving MLC (SMLC) into a single unit of operation. The GMLC is the first node of interaction between the network operator and external LBS client. The SMLC on the other hand is the node that resides in the network of the operator, directly connected to the Base Station Controller (BSC), and calculates the location of mobile devices based on various network parameters. The GMLC communicates with the SMLC to retrieve mobile location of subscribers upon location inquiries made by external LBS clients.
Mylinex MLC provides:
Real-time tracking
Last activity location query
The location query method could be one of the many available options, namely:
TA + NMR method
This method uses the Timing Advance (TA) from the service cell and the signaling strength reports from adjacent cells (Network Monitoring Reports – NMR) to triangulate the location of the mobile. This method provides the best accuracy typically in the range of 50-100m in an urban environment
TA only method
In the lack of the NMRs, this method falls back to using TA only, thus providing a location estimate of intermediate accuracy.
Serving cell only method
When both of the above methods fail, the MLC can get the Anytime Interrogation based Cell ID location, thus providing the location of the serving cell.
The Mylinex MLC also provides a unique enhancement using CAMEL MCSI trigger, a fairly new CAMEL detection point that is configured in the Home Location Register (HLR) and triggered whenever the subscriber in question changes their location. Acting as a CAMEL node, Mylinex MLC can capture this information and provide real time input to any value added service that consumes this type of information.