Wireless carrier AT&T is creating the Location Information Services platform to help businesses and organizations with mobile initiatives improve productivity and have better visibility into their assets.

This cloud-based expansion of AT&T’s portfolio of mobile resource management services is being developed in collaboration with LOC-AID Technologies Inc. and TechnoCom Corp. to provide domestic location-awareness and tracking abilities. AT&T’s new branded offering is scheduled to be available later this year.

“AT&T Location Information Services is focused on the enterprise developer community and enterprise customers looking to develop their own apps for internal use or for a B2B2C deployment,” said David Hildebrant, Redmond, WA-based director of product marketing management at AT&T Business Solutions.

“The strategy recognizes that enterprise needs are different, so we are proving a cross-carrier location, SMS and privacy control all billed on the AT&T bill—and we are the only carrier in North America doing so,” he said.

“AT&T Location Information Services are designed to provide AT&T enterprise customers with a highly reliable, operationally managed service where network-based location information can be obtained for corporate assets, employee devices and consumer handsets.”

AT&T is the No. 2 carrier in the United States based on number of subscribers.

Location, location, location
AT&T Location Information Services are designed to provide AT&T’s enterprise customer base with a reliable, operationally managed service where network-based location information can be obtained for corporate assets, employee devices and consumer handsets.

This service is intended to take advantage of AT&T’s cloud capabilities in order to improve operational efficiencies, increase customer satisfaction and control costs for a variety of industries such as financial services, retail, healthcare, education, travel and hospitality and manufacturing.

It should also provide an addition revenue stream for AT&T.

The carrier is seeing an increased demand from its business customers to use the AT&T global network to be more location-aware of their assets.

AT&T carrier intends its Location Information Services to be a natural evolution of its mobile resource management portfolio, which is designed to increase productivity and reduce costs for enterprise customers.

AT&T is collaborating with LOC-AID to enable enterprise customers to access location information of their customers in order to deliver location-aware services and content.

With LOC-AID’s Location-as-a Service offering, enterprises can now gain access to their customer’s location information on-demand, based upon their business requirements or business events.

The mobile location platform from LOC-AID, Location Xchange Gateway offers developers a single Web-services API to the get location data of mobile devices and a simple on-boarding process to create applications that use device location information.

It also provides a range of location-enablement services, including x/y coordinate delivery, geofencing, geocoding, map appends and location.

“For app developers, AT&T Location Information Services will help to simplify the process by being able to get location information from major carriers in North America plus cross-carrier SMS and industry-leading, CTIA-approved privacy management platform,” Mr. Hildebrant said.

Enterprise developers are able to locate mobile devices through the Location Xchange Gateway and use network-based location data to enable services such as fraud prevention, mobile marketing, authentication, mobile analytics and asset tracking in a number of vertical industries.

Additionally, AT&T is teaming with TechnoCom to provide turn-key location and messaging services to enterprise customers through the TechnoCom Location Platform.

“AT&T evaluated every major location aggregator and selected Loc-Aid and TechnoCom because they are enterprise focused and provide privacy management, APIs and more cross-carrier connectivity allowing enterprise developers and enterprise customers the ability to gain access to carrier location information through one company—AT&T,” Mr. Hildebrant said.

“Additionally, both of these companies have industry leading expertise in key enterprise vertical markets that AT&T is focused on,” he said.

The platform’s mediation capabilities, workflow engine and configurable business rules are designed to add value to enable a diverse set of uses, including roadside assistance, transaction fraud prevention, mobile advertising, customer relationship management, personal and family security, and mobile workforce management. 

“2010 was the year of location-based services, and LOC-AID’s collaboration with AT&T is indicative that the momentum is only building in 2011,” said Rip Gerber, president and CEO of LOC-AID, San Francisco.

“We look forward to working closely with AT&T and the developer community to allow enterprises in any industry to fully maximize the potential of network-based LBS,” he said

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Commerce Daily