ZTE Corporation, China's publicly quoted telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and CPS (Cambridge Positioning Systems Limited) today announce the signing of a major marketing and development agreement to deliver Matrix high accuracy location-enabled mobile handsets to the global GSM market.
The agreement, announced today at the 3GSM Congress in Cannes, represents a world first in the integration of CPS's "user plane" Matrix software into a standardized GSM handset. ZTE is a significant handset supplier to the 260m-strong Chinese mobile market but also has a strategic ambition to expand globally beyond its current Asia Pacific, European and African market presence.
Matrix is a unique software-only solution that combines sub-100m accuracy with rapid location time-to-fix and consistent performance across outdoor and indoor environments–for less than $1 per subscriber. Until now, location-positioning information has been delivered over GSM using the "control plane"–the internal GSM signaling. Utilizing the "user plane"–via IP over GPRS or SMS–operators can deploy the Matrix solution across networks from different equipment vendors in a transparent and seamless way. In turn, this leads to significant operational cost benefits.
This is in line with industry-wide moves, promoted by the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance), towards "open" standards, interoperability across all networks and devices and specifically a move from "control plane" to "user plane" solutions. Members of OMA include China Mobile, Vodafone, Texas Instruments, Intel and Nokia. Matrix will be integrated into a range of ZTE terminals and handset products with further plans for joint marketing to operators worldwide for both 2G and 3G. Already, CPS is working on a number of high accuracy location trials with operators in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe that will benefit from this latest development. Initially, ZTE and CPS will focus their joint activities on the Chinese GSM market, where demand for cost-effective location technologies is growing rapidly.