This article is the first of series of three articles in which I’ll explain some basic principles and concepts of GPS. I in this article I’ll explain how exactly GPS works so it won’t be a mystery anymore. I’ll also mention some recent enhancements to the GPS system. In the second article I’ll explain about some of the GPS core technologies, so when you hear the magic words “Sirf III” you’ll know what people are talking about. And finally, in the third paragraph I’ll make a short review of the leading GPS manufacturers on the market today.
First of all GPS stands for Global Positioning System and usually refers to the GPS receiver. The receiver basically receives the signals incoming from constellation of 27 satellites which are orbiting the Earth (actually there are only 24 satellites that are operational and 3 additional for backup in case one of the 24 fails) and from those signals can calculate it’s absolute position on Earth. This satellite system was developed by the U.S. military and after a while U.S. government opened it up for public. Those satellites are circling the Earth making two complete rotations every day. Their orbits are planned the way that at any time and anywhere on Earth there are at least four satellites “visible” in the sky. A GPS receiver locates four or more satellites from the signals those satellites send constantly towards the Earth, calculates the distance to each of the satellites and from this information calculates its’ absolute location on Earth. This process of pinpointing the location of the GPS receiver is based on mathematical principle called trilateration.
Let me explain a little about this principle regarding the GPS. It is a little tricky so if you don’t want to bother yourself with details – just skip this chapter. Like I said, GPS receiver locates the satellites and calculates the distance to them. Lets say for example receiver knows that Satellite_1 is located 20 miles from it. In the whole space Satellite_1 can be anywhere on a huge Sphere with radius of 20 miles around the receiver. If receiver also knows that Satellite_2 is located 30 miles from it, it can overlap the sphere of satellite_1 with the sphere of satellite_2. The spheres intersect in a perfect circle (think in 3 dimensions). The distance to the third satellites gives us a third sphere which intersects with the circle in two points. One of those points is located in space and the other located on Earth. This second point is actually the location of the GPS receiver. Using the Earth as fourth sphere, receiver is able to choose that second point and this way it knows its’ exact location on earth.
Basically GPS receiver needs to locate only three satellites but it always tries to locate as many satellites as possible because it improves the accuracy of the result.
The signals that satellites are constantly transmitting are high-frequency, low power radio waves which contain information about the satellite and its’ location. GPS receiver can calculate the distance to the satellite by counting the time it takes to the signal to get from the satellite to the receiver.
The whole process described above works well but it has inaccuracies due to several reasons like signal interference,weather and more. Differential GPS (DGPS) helps correct those inaccuracies. This enhancement is base on stations located on Earth. The hardware at those stations knows exactly the location of the station and constantly sends information to GPS receivers (but only to those in which this technology is implemented) how to correct their results so the will be more accurate.
Once the GPS receiver made the calculation, it can tell the latitude, the longitude and the altitude of its’ current position. This doesn’t tell much to the average user. So in order to make the use of the GPS receiver more user-friendly many receivers send this data to a program which displays a map and can show the position on it.
Well that’s it for this article and check for updates, because like I said at the top of this article there are two more articles on the way!
About The Author
Zvi Braverman is a student of electronic Engineering at the Tel-Aviv university. He is co-founder of 4Winds company which imports GPS equipment and designs GPS and Hi-tech solutions for personal users and organizations. More information about GPS products can be found here: http://www.rikaline.co.il.
Mavenir offers world class converged voice solutions. Mavenir Systems provides a service where moble operators can introduce enhanced voice service for enterprise customers and consumers and deliver new services which can serve as an add-on to currently existing mobility service offerings to enrich the user experience. Customers are given to communicate across different access domains and devices as they decide. Mobile VoIP grants operators to provide MSC-based voice services via new devices and can offer differentiated services. IMS centralized services will allow operators to connect and deliver IMS services to all devices some of which include 3G, 2G, UMA, and FEMTO cells. FEMTO Services Gateway allows providers to facilitate traffic between Femto Cells to your core netword, while at the same time offering unique value added services covering the enterprise or residential coverage zones.
Converged Messaging Solutions are also availabe from Mavenir.The world of the messaging industry is experiencing a transition from the old standard SMS messaging technologies to media rich, multi-device MMS and IP-based Instant Messaging.
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The talk in the marketplace these days is how VOIP is going to revolutionise the telecommunications market. According to doomsdayers Telstra, Telco Blue and AAPT are going to be a thing of the past and VOIP will reign supreme.
Fact or fiction?
In recent times, VOIP has been the subject on many peoples’ lips. “The next big thing”! “A new way to make calls” are some of the ways VOIP has been described.
But how many people actually know what VOIP is and how they can use it?
VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol or for the layman it means talking over the Internet. This technology uses the Internet network to carry the telephone call. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Also it is remarkably cheaper than picking up the phone.
However, VOIP has its own range of issues that makes it difficult to implement. Firstly, you must have a computer. With the advent of the Internet this is becoming more and more common in every household, so may not be much of an issue.
Also you must be connected to the Internet. If you already have a computer this is not much of an issue either. The person you are calling must also have a computer and an Internet connection. This may be a bit of an inconvenience but not impossible.
For me the biggest issue facing VOIP is the quality of the call. You can drop out, the sound is inferior, you can get interference and delays and the quality varies based on the standard of technology you have.
The way a telephone call is carried over the current infrastructure is reliable, relatively cheap, always good quality, very convenient and not dead yet! This generates over $190 billion in revenue each year in Australia alone
Call me crazy but VOIP is not a CRAZE yet!
Dan Cavalli makes it easy for businesses and people to be informed about the Australian Telecommunications Industry. For details and to read more about this subject and to receive your free news and views newsletter visit http://www.telcoblue.com.au.
A fund of £1m is being allotted to network researchers, in order to help them develop new technologies for providing individual and business users with broadband speeds of up to 10GB. This information has come out of the Technology Strategy Board (TSB).
The selection process, it seems, is already over as it was revealed that recently the Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills decided on how much funds (between £30,000 and £100,000) will be allocated to whom.
The TSB seems confident that its initiative has the ability to overpower the plans being made by BT. While BT envisions to offer up to 40Mb to almost half the UK population by 2012, TSB feels that its aim of a 10GB optical network across the European Union is a practical one, and would see the light of day eventually. Click here for the latest info on the best broadband.
Mike Biddle, TSB’s main technologist, commented that it was important to first figure out what are the problems that are making this initiative of introducing superfast broadband services so difficult. Finding solutions to these problems follows next. Moreover, all this needs to be done through European partnerships that will offer expertise to make full use of the technologies available.
TSB’s belief is that once the basic infrastructure is built, this superfast broadband service will play an important role in increasing the competitiveness of European business, giving them an advantage globally.
A recent study from the Broadband Stakeholder Group estimates that a cost of almost £29 billion would be involved in setting up a fibre network across the UK, which would be able to provide broadband speeds of up to 10GB.
There is good news for broadband users with slower connections. Opera, a software development company, has come out with a new browser called ‘Turbo’, which could make browsing on slower connections a much better experience.
The underlying technology is quite simple; Turbo sends web pages to Opera’s own servers, before sending them to the user’s browser. The pages are compressed by up to 80 percent, and then these much smaller files are sent to the browser. It is claimed by the company that by using Turbo, browsing speeds could be enhanced by a factor of four for mobile broadband customers. (click here for the latest free laptop and mobile broadband offers)
With this kind of compression, however, certain amount of loss of resolution can be expected. Nevertheless, Turbo is said to be able to support AJAX and Flash, which more than makes up for the resolution loss. The company has also emphasized that the layout of text and images will also be displayed just as planned by the webpage developer.
The situation has not been a pleasant one for people using mobile broadband services so far, as there is a great discrepancy between the actual broadband speed and the advertised speed. Thus, this move by Opera should come as a much-needed relief for the mobile broadband as well as the netbook market.
The release by Opera follows an announcement by Microsoft that it too wants to focus on the netbook market.
If you are looking for ways to save money on your phone bills I have a great tip for you. As a student who has been studying in the UK for a number of years, on several occasions I’ve been faced with some massive bills as a consequence of calling home overseas. I was desperate to find a way of making cheap calls to Finland. Somone who also moved to the UK recently told me that her phone bills were only a fraction of mine and when I enquired how she managed to keep them so low she told me that she uses ‘VoIP’ technology to call home, which means her calls are placed over the internet rather than over a usual carrier. This means you can avoid a whole host of charges that you normally have no other choice but to pay for the privilege of using the phone network.
The biggest revelation was just how easy it was to install, and how clear the calls were. I would have assumed being routed over the internet would have meant the sound quality would have suffered. Also having signed up with one of the biggest providers of VoIP, calls to other users are totally free and don’t cost me a penny. Which is great news as I can speak to family now back in Finland without having to worry about how much money it’s costing me.
The average consumer have a poor understanding of free line rental products because they are a recent development. Free line rental products remain the least utilised amongst all of the products being offered at time of writing.
Without exception most competitive way to purchase a free line rental mobile contract is online. As free line rental contracts are a specialised product you would be well advised to find a comprehensive a comparison site specialising in mobile phones to indentify the most competitive contracts at that given moment.
Free line rental deals are nothing more 100% cashback deals where the amount paid by redemption amounts to the amount paid for the mobile contract. This means you are obligated to pay the mobile phone bill just like normal for the first months. Then it is your responsibility to remember to claim one hundred percent of the cost of the phone back from the retailer who initially offered you the phone.
In reality a 12 month free line rental contract should not cost a cent to own. That is, as long as the owner of the phone correctly makes a claim for cashback by redemption. It is rare that this is nearly as simple as consumers are told as dealers build in sneaky catches with the agreement of free line rental packages in order to control the number of successful claimants.
Despite the potential difficulties of free line rental products they are legitimate and customers can still get a one hundred percent cost free phone for 12 months.
12 month free is a trade off, because they are only made available with older cell phones. A serious risk of free line rental offers is that should the retailer becomes bankrupt you will be unable to redeem your money.