Swedish vendor Ericsson has licensed Cambridge Positioning Systems's Cursor technology to offer operators as part of its mobile location solution. Cursor is based on the enhanced observed time difference (E-OTD) standard.

Ericsson follows Germany's Siemens in licensing U.K.-based CPS's software for use in network infrastructure. The company offers the software free of charge to handset vendors, but for the system to work, its modifications must be present in both handset and network.

The Swedish company will use Cursor as the intellectual property building blocks for the E-OTD part of its next mobile positioning system (MPS) product release, version four. Goran Swedberg, marketing director for mobile positioning, said MPS-G 4.0 will incorporate three of the four mobile positioning standards: E-OTD, global positioning system (GPS) and cell ID. The company will not be offering time of arrival (TOA), which offers a very low level accuracy rate.

"GPS is needed when it comes to navigation services," Swedberg said. "E-OTD will be needed as the demand for accuracy is rising."

GPS, which uses satellite, is more expensive to the end user because it requires new hardware in the handset, a spokeswoman for CPS said. Swedberg said there would also be room for cell ID, which is the cheapest and easiest positioning standard. 

"Mobile positioning will be mandatory," he said. "In a few years time you can't be a service operator without it."

CPS's technology uses a kind of triangulation to locate the user, by comparing signals received in the handset from various points around the network. It requires software upgrades. The spokeswoman said she believed Nokia is developing a system based on E-OTD, a standard approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

The company recently finished trials in the U.S. with GSM operator VoiceStream, and claims it is close to reaching the accuracy level of 50 meters demanded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In January, it teamed with local companies to build an MPS test network in Italy, hoping to attract operator interest. The spokeswoman said the experience taught the company to work through vendors such as Ericsson or Siemens. "From now on we won't be selling directly to an operator."