Broadcom Corporation announced that it will upgrade its location based
services (LBS) infrastructure to add Wi-Fi positioning to its LBS portfolio
of services.
Broadcom will use the Wi-Fi Positioning System developed by Skyhook Wireless, Inc., which pioneeredthe development of Wi-Fi positioning. The Broadcom LBS services business currently
supports over 20 million active customers in over 170 countries; having
provided over one billion extended ephemeris, or Long Term Orbits(TM) (LTO)
downloads to date.
Using GPS alone to determine a location works well in outdoor
environments, but the ability to determine one's location in this way is often
impaired in deep urban and indoor environments.
Broadcom will integrate the Skyhook solution with its chipsets and LBS
solutions to enable hybrid location positioning. The Skyhook Wireless(TM)
solution produces accurate location information by detecting Wi-Fi access
points and comparing them against a known database of geo-located points.
This upgraded LBS infrastructure connects directly to Wi-Fi access points
and cellular base stations, enabling device makers and applications developers
to provide consumer-ready location based technology that works quickly and
accurately, even in deep urban and indoor environments. The Wi-Fi positioning
upgrade will further secure Broadcom's position as the premiere supplier of
hosted LBS products, enabling customers who adopt Broadcom's unique end-to-end
solutions to expand LBS into new frontiers of availability and performance.
For more information regarding Broadcom's location based service products,
please visit the company's website at
http://www.broadcom.com/products/GPS/Location-Based-Services.