Providing position information to a device

#The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and more particularly to providing position information to a device.

#Position determination systems offer a method of providing a geographic position relative to other people or objects, whether moving or stationary. The number of these systems is increasing and they fall into two broad categories, namely, stand-alone and remote.

#Remote systems require an external source in order to determine location. Services include electronic navigational fixed beacons, such as Long Range Electronic Navigation (LORAN). The beacons repetitively transmit signals and a device determines its own location by determining a beacon ID and determining its distance from the beacon.

#The present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to preferred embodiments thereof, as illustrated in the following drawings:

#FIGS. 1A-1C show the basics of the triangulation technique;

#FIG. 2 shows a partially schematic pictorial view of a global positioning system;

#FIG. 3 shows a representation of a device according to the present invention. For example, the device (300) is a “smartphone”, which is typically a portable phone comprising extra computing functions, such as, the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) for accessing the Internet. In FIG. 3, an application (305) running on the device (300), such as a route finder application, is shown. Preferably, the application (305) interacts with position determining means (310) of the present invention—this will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 4. Also shown, is a GPS receiver (315) (a position determination system), and a further position determination system (320) is also shown. It should be understood that the present invention allows one or more position determination systems to be utilized. If two or more position determination systems are utilized, whereby each system provides differing position data. Beneficially, the present invention provides a mechanism to standardize the differing position data.

#An example of a position determination system (320) is a pay service, whereby a user can telephone a third party service (often at a premium rate) and ask for their current position. For example, if a user contacts the third party service and gives his/her location (e.g. Hursley Road, Winchester), the third party service can provide the user with co-ordinates for Hursley Road. An example of an offering that takes this service further, is provided by Vizzavi (http://www.vizzavi.co.uk), which identifies a user's position and can then provide location based services to the user's mobile phone (e.g. the nearest restaurant or bar to that user). A further example of a position determination system (320) is a simple radio cell, as described above.

#FIG. 4 shows a detailed overview of position determining means (310) of the present invention. Generally, the present invention provides an application-level service for applications running on a device. Advantageously, by utilising the present invention, a device (300) can obtain position information, irrespective of the technology or services providing the position information.