Mobile positioning and location-based services (LBS) have come a long way since the FCC order for phase II of 9-1-1 dictated that cellular operators provide location of emergency callers within a certain degree of location accuracy.

It’s not easy to be a mobile industry executive in a developed country at this time. As a matter of fact, a wireless exec’s life has never been more complex. Just when the wireless carriers are starting to look at service differentiation made possible by 3G technologies, the subscriber penetration is starting to slow and the shareholders are starting to ask for higher OBIDA margins.

Both 3G and IMS seek to help operators evolve data-oriented service offerings for their subscribers. Both technologies are aimed at higher speed data applications. What’s also important to consider, however, is the enablement of voice traffic over Internet protocol (“VoIP”), traversing the network in a packet oriented fashion rather than the traditional, legacy circuit switched environment.

What is cdma2000? It is a third-generation (3G) wireless technology, based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), that has evolved from cdmaOne (or IS95), a 2G technology. By contrast, UMTS is also a CDMA-based 3G technology that represents an evolutionary step forward for the 2G GSM networks.

We hear a lot about the privacy and security of cellular conversations. Most of the focus is, knowingly or otherwise, on the vulnerabilities inherently present over the air-waves. Most laymen, unfamiliar with the availability and usage of encryption techniques, look at the problem very superficially.

With a billion mobile handsets sold each year at an average of over $100 apiece, this is a lucrative, $100 billion dollar plus market. Tens of handset manufacturers, hundreds of network operators, and thousands of other businesses are deriving sustenance from the mobile handset market.