LBS -> Future and Forecast

“Berg Insight's forecasts show that LBS could contribute with up to Euro 4 billion by 2010. Earlier some obstacles have held back the LBS marketplace such as limited handsets, few useful or really entertaining applications, lack of roaming capabilities and lack of standards. These problems now seem to be continuously resolved and the future looks definitely brighter for the LBS industry”. (LBS Reports. 2005)

John Leyden (2005) introduces the new Location Based Service that is currently under trial in UK. “In the trial, a control device was loaded with a digital map showing the speed limit of every road in Leeds. This was linked to a satellite positioning system. If a speed limit was exceeded an "auto-pilot" function would slow a car down. The system can be over-ridden to avoid a hazard but in normal 

circumstances drivers would not be allowed  The system can be over-ridden to avoid a hazard but in normal circumstances drivers would not be allowed to go over a speed limit.” This shows that more and more such services will be introduced in the future.

In New York Daily News (2005) a historical judgement was made which set a precedent to similar rulings in the future. It said that, “Cops without A warrant can secretly attach Global Positioning System devices to a suspect's vehicle, according to a federal judge - who said using the gadgets is virtually the same thing as following a car along a road.”

A recent report on the Cyber Atlas Web site refers to an ARC Group study indicating that LBS will account for over 40 percent of mobile data revenues worldwide by 2007 (Greenspan, 2002). This optimistic forecast further goes on to predict that there will be 748 million worldwide users of LBS as early 2004, up from an estimated 72 million in 2001. The ARC Group believes that by the end of 2004, nearly all wireless-enabled computing devices will use some form of location service. The same article also describes another marketing study by Ovum predicting that the Western European market for LBS will reach $6.6 billion by 2006, and that as much as 44 percent of cellular subscribers will be using LBS (Greenspan, 2002).

Not everyone believes these projections. Charles Steinsfield (2003) for example argues that