More Information

Introduction

Presence and availability technologies provide the ability to determine the event in which a mobile user is present in a certain location and/or available for certain events to take place such as mobile messaging, games, and other location based services.

Research

Wholesale Mobile Report

Secrets of MVNO Success

Mobile in Minute papers

Enabling Technologies

The ability to determine the presence of a mobile user may be accomplished via both push and pull technologies.

Push technologies include the ability to set static "triggers" in network nodes such as VLRs to report the presence of a mobile user at a serving switch location based on ANSI-41 or GSM MAP messaging. Other technologies exist that enable the capture of activity for analysis and action at centralized locations.

Pull technologies include the ability for the network to proactively poll for presence information about select mobile users or groups of users.

The ability to determine availability is based on the ability of the system to state (on/off) of the mobile device, its capabilities (example: can it receive messaging of a certain type or does it have certain capabilities enabled by embedded technologies), and is the mobile user willing to engage in certain activities (such as being located and/or messaged by friends). All of these network abilities depend on the existence of programs residing on applications that provide this information once the presence status is determine.

Applications

There are too many applications to adequately introduce them. The applications include location-based services, mobile commerce, mobile advertising, mobile messaging, and many more.