Consistent LBS solution in next generations of mobile internet

Location based services (LBSs) have been considered as promising killer applications. There are already some LBSs available in the market while it seems that there is not such a big demand on them. The main reason is that there are many different technology alternatives for providing LBS (WAP and LIF, among others). This problem causes the market fragmentation where different vendors provide LBS applications built with their own protocols and mechanisms. The approach is in detriment of the user experience on LBS. They usually perceive different services via the terminals of different vendors, while the services should be the same from LBS point of view. In addition, this problem dramatically increases the investment and operation costs for operators to provide LBSs for the users with the terminals of various vendors. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel mechanism (a common "LBS" service type and a common LBSP protocol) to create the common LBSs universally understood by different terminals or systems. LBSP works in wired and wireless IP networks for providing LBSs and, reuses existing network elements and protocols.