Water Resources Discipline ITAC Activities

here is a composition of some emails i have pieced together on this topic. take the 5 min demo below. it is interesting.

I have sent most of this info to the bureau person, Skip Dutrow who is coordinating the bulk purchase national cell contract. he said the overall contract will not have this requirement, but it will be easy to get exempted to use this technology in the field.

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h:253-531-1481

NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader, US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA 98402 water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data

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You are correct. We got an impressive demo by Nextel to the Cellular team. Other vendors use an external GPS interface for the current GPS location capabilities and is generally for commercial services. Even Nextels offering is a separate paid for service if you want to track users - if I remember correctly from the demo that they held. Nextel is also the vendor with the more viable push to talk feature, although Verizon has it also, the Verizon version has a significant delay in their push to talk capability. The primary goal of the cellular negotiations is to come up with cost savings first and secondarily to have available to users advanced features and the option to incorporate new technology into exsiting contracts should they require it in the performance of their missions.

Robert (Skip) L. Dutrow
USGS Radio Liaison Officer/DAR
Telecommunications Specialist
MS809
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, VA 20192
WK 703-648-7017
Fax 703-648-4250
E-Mail: rdutrow@usgs.gov

Skip, Glad to hear you are considering this capability. However, I am hearing different information from the 3 GPS-add-on service vendors i talked to. While all cell providers may qualify to meet the fed. req. for e-911, the vendors i talked to say nextel is the only one with true GPS phone service right now. I note you say many services use external GPS units--that would indicate the phone does not have the GPS capability itself.

note as in the email below:

Nextel, a-GPS, live commercial services today

Verizon, a-GPS, commercial services Q4 2005

Sprint, a-GPS, commercial services Q2 2005

T-Mobile, TDOA, unknown date available

Cingular, TDOA, unknown date available

You say my features 1, 2, and 4 are available now. Would you tell me who to talk to to get those on my treo 650- a very high tech new phone from Palm/Sprint?

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h:253-531-1481
NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader, US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA 98402 water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data

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Sandy, the GPS feature is one of the items that is listed in the requirements for the cell phone contract. All the cell phones will have the capability (I noted the proposed schedule listed in an e-mail below) due to legislation that requires the ability to locate a person for 911 emergency situations. Do keep in mind the tracking service is an extra service and like many options can get costly. Many of these services use external GPS units and interface to the cell phone and often the phones are satellite phones to ensure a more complete coverage area. There is nothing stopping getting the phones now except you cannot enter into a contract longer that a year and there should be no termination liability costs for early contract termination. Of the 4 features you listed 3 are presently available in one form or another. The exception is the panic button and the closest I can think of would be a preprogramed auto dial number that the user would create to dial a prearranged trouble number or whatever.

I've cc'd one of our key cellular team members so your comments will be noted.

Do keep in mind that the cellular contract is going for the best value for price but it will not be mandatory should the vendors service have coverage issues or other exceptions that would require going to an alternate service to continue to meet mission requirements.

Robert (Skip) L. Dutrow
USGS Radio Liaison Officer/DAR
Telecommunications Specialist
MS809
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, VA 20192
WK 703-648-7017
Fax 703-648-4250
E-Mail: rdutrow@usgs.gov

-----Sandy K Williamson/WRD/USGS/DOI wrote: -----

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h:253-531-1481
NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader, US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA 98402 water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data
----- Forwarded by Sandy K Williamson/WRD/USGS/DOI on 04/04/2005 03:48 PM -----
[IMAGE] [IMAGE]

Sandy K Williamson

04/04/2005 03:47 PM
[IMAGE]

fyi. hope you are the right contact persons.

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h:253-531-1481
NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader, US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA 98402 water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data

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I did not realize the industry has matured so far. I was talking to a friend who runs a local trucking co. and they have a GPS system on their nextel phones right now that reports all their truck locations real time all the time. Is it too late to consider this in the bulk cell-phone contract search?

All of our field people and some of our office people would benefit from at least some if not most of the following capabilities:

1. being able to get directions from where you are to an address or a lat-long [like well or data location].
2. being able to report and store where you are [a data location]
3. a panic button that would report your location to a designated phone number and/or email abbrev. then turn on the speaker phone.
4. Tracking of other field employees, very useful on large field operations or in special situations

below is some info from one vendor i found on the net. Anotherone is sending me more detailed info tomorrow which i will forward on.

Sandy (Alex K.) Williamson akwill@usgs.gov 253-428-3600x2683 (-3614fax) C:253-376-8273 h:253-531-1481
NAWQA Nat'l Data Base Team Leader, US Geological Survey, Tacoma WA 98402 water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data

----- Forwarded by Sandy K Williamson/WRD/USGS/DOI on 04/04/2005 03:37 PM ----- "Jon Finegold"

Sandy,

Nice chatting with you today. It sounds like you are considering some applications that take advantage of both the uLocate platform as well as potentially the geosnapper.com geo-tagged image platform. Here is a summary of the location technologies on the U.S.wireless carriers today. Let me know if you would like me to discuss this in more detail with your colleagues.

There are 2 systems the U.S.wireless carriers have adopted to support their E911 requirements, TDOA and a-GPS. TDOA (Time Differential Of Arrival) is a network based system that uses cell tower triangulation to estimate the user’s location. a-GPS (assisted GPS) works by having a GPS chipset and antenna on the phone itself and uses the network to figure out which satellites to look for.

Major USCarriers:

Nextel, a-GPS, live commercial services today

Verizon, a-GPS, commercial services Q4 2005

Sprint, a-GPS, commercial services Q2 2005

T-Mobile, TDOA, unknown

Cingular, TDOA, unknown

a-GPS

Pros:

-high accuracy (within 5-10 feet with good line of sight)

Cons:

-high battery use

-doesn’t work well inside or in thick woods

-requires newer phone

TDOA

Pros:

-works on all phones, does not require upgrade

-does not impact battery

Cons:

-lower accuracy (especially in rural areas)

-requires network signal

Hope this helps but let me know if you would like me to discuss with your colleagues in more detail.

Regards,

Jon

Jon Finegold
Director, Business Development
________________________________

uLocate Communications Inc.
the power ofwhere
______________________________________

111 Speen Street
Suite415
Framingham, MA01701
+1 508-656-2127 (office)
+1 617-645-2850 (mobile)
jfinegold@ulocate.com
www.ulocate.com