ABC of VAS
Cellular communication is continuously becoming cheaper, and people's needs for mobile business and personal contacts grow slightly or remain about the same level. The yield from each individual subscriber decreases, which may not please the operators who have to look for other ways to "attract" their clients' money. The surest way - development of new fee-based services (VAS - Value Added Services), which is also quite responsible and our interests with you. Not all are transformed into princesses Cinderella, many new services to remain unclaimed and still die a natural death. However, sometimes, and vice versa: at first sight unimportant service evolves, mutates, and eventually turns into a single system, sometimes even self-sufficient. A set of services based on LBS is a typical example of such a development of mobile services, as in this case, the SIM-card is often acquired only for regular mobile object positioning.At the heart of the system - defining the approximate coordinates of the mobile phone. The location of the tube holder is calculated by complex algorithms, and are interested in the principles of mobile positioning technologies can read the article by Eldar Murtazin here. In large metropolitan areas of base stations a lot, so the accuracy of tens of meters in downtown and hundreds of meters in the suburbs outside of Moscow - up to several kilometers. Information on the whereabouts of a subscriber can request and receive in the form of SMS-messages via Wap-portal operator (directly on the phone display) or as a handy map on the screen of a PC. Our material is not in any way intended to be exhaustive analysis of the LBS of both operators, too many opportunities and various services. If desired, one can dig into their own systems, to examine their functional and make an informed decision. Our task - to determine the overall approach, structure, convenience and workable system. It is also not ignored the principles of rating services, and commercial rates.
Not bad, but for missile guidance does not fit
The first and almost the most important issue - the positioning accuracy. Here, the MTS system looks much better as a result of episodic measurements in different locations in Moscow subjectively appeared above average accuracy of 20-25%. Make a reservation at once: no miracles such as "I know you're in this house!" not expected.These commercial systems are not designed, at best (in downtown), we can rely on the accuracy of plus or minus half a hundred meters. For the third transport ring Much depends on which of the available BS telephone "hook", even when moving the phone in another room of the circle center position may move for good 400-600 meters. More or less objectively compare the positioning accuracy of different systems is possible only for a certain point, considering and comparing the weighted average error in the results of several attempts. And not the fact that shifted 10 meters to the side we do not get quite opposite results, "competition". In our case, the average error in the positioning was 308 meters in the MTS and 419 meters in MegaFon.
On the resemblance and different approaches
New "Navigator" MegaFon-Moscow unaccustomed to shock his resemblance to the MTS system. Maps and look at all twins, almost the only conspicuous external differences - typical "corporate" colors. From the Web-shell former ANC is nothing left, the system is completely redesigned. Whether it takes into account the positive experience of designers and developers, "MTS-Search", or brought into conformity with generally accepted approaches to displaying map information on the Internet. Fortunately, re-register and activate / deactivate do not need and, importantly, all previously entered into the system, users, schedules / options and settings carefully preserved in the new shell."Pivot" of both systems - to determine the approximate location of the phone is available on request. Next on the rod string may be additional services and functionality: the layout of groups to work out collective requests, scheduling, creation of statistical reports, monitoring the entrance / exit to the subscriber area, search geographically close sites, and more. It is in the implementation of these services there are many serious differences between the "Navigator" and "MTS-Search."
MTS-Search: A lot of services that are similar and different
Here, developers have diligently and unsuccessfully cut the cake into thin slices: eye run from the abundance of a variety of services. Allocated to seven main sections: "My City, My Business, My Friends, My Car," "Our children", etc. By the way, why "My" and the children suddenly found themselves "Our"? Well, okay, let's not get distracted. Further, in each section has several sub-services with their individual interface, nicknames, passwords, descriptions, etc. One can assume the desire of developers to simplify user interaction with the system: went into the game "Night Watch" and watch myself on health, not being distracted by the "extra" functions of the system. Conversely, a caring mother, a housewife would be sufficient in "Angel" or "mobile child, in all sorts of" Parallel Worlds "her to do absolutely nothing. Some logic is viewed, but the active user will often jump from section to section. For example, in "My City" you can search the nearest pharmacy and food outlets, did not find a suitable next - welcome to "my car", here you can see the situation with traffic jams.Send a message to friends can be from the same interface with a separate entrance, control movement of the freight forwarder - go to "mobile workers" and so on. The same number of times you have to repeat the positioning and how to keep in mind nicknames?
Navigator: All-in-one
The set of available services and features not unlike a set of "MTS-Search", but here almost all the services combined single interface. List of available positioning sites is constantly present on the screen, objects can be combined into groups or work with them individually. In the "Navigator" starting point is not collected from the blocks and the combined conventional name service, but rather the object or group of objects with which you can perform any operation designed into the system. No need to travel between different overlapping services / applications, only one nickname and password. Personally, I like this approach more, but it's a matter of taste. For example, I know a lot of people in general are not familiar with the concept "file manager" and satisfy absolutely all their needs for working with files directly from the interface of MS Word.Accordingly, the initial development of the system will take longer for the unskilled user. In the Help menu, all services and functions are combined in the overall table intimidating size, print the paper version will take a detailed directory of 30 pages of A4. On the other hand, the intuitive interface is quite at the level, and the menu seems quite logical.
Knacks and "little things"
New "Navigator", with its redesigned user interface that has just appeared, and it was logical to expect any radically new features and conveniences. Something really new has appeared. For example, the interesting feature is implemented avtoprokladki route between two points: select a starting point, giving addresses on a map or positioning of an object from a list (like myself) - "the choice of destination by specifying an address or positioning another object from the list -> select option to consider / ignore information about traffic jams in a route. Really works and really takes into account the relevant data on the Moscow traffic jams: a test specification system has ignored the logical route on Ring Road and the paved highway through the city, because fixed in the time stopper on the Ring Road bypass was impossible.Unfortunately, no "smart" system will not hijack the changes in traffic situation in Moscow, but the additional information still does not hurt.
The scale of the scale with a convenient "slider" above the image of a map - much to the place and completely functional, we hope that in the MTS-Search "will consider a rewarding experience. But in the absence of the "Navigator" autoscaling upset: the MTS-Search "when prompted to search for the nearest object map automatically scaled so that at least some unknown object appeared on the screen.
Well organized in the "Navigator" statistics and data on the executed query, information is available within a month. Very convenient that you can see not only the statistics of operations, plus textual information with the results of positioning, but the actual cards, the fragments are stored as gif-files. In MTS-Search "to view only statistics, but only for one day (" My City ") or for a fee (the" Compass ").
What is how much
Principles of rating services positioning in the MTS-Search "and" Navigator "differ dramatically. In the "Navigator" is present monthly fee (26 USD. 55 kopecks. Per month), the MTS-Search "no monthly fee. In the "Navigator," the first 14 days after the registration of Web-request for the location free of charge, in the MTS-Search "for the development of the system will have to pay in full. Sending positioning is virtually identical in both systems, 15 cents excluding VAT in the MTS-Search, and 15.5 cents in the "Navigator". In MTS-Search "money for every single request from the account is not debited, the subscriber should send an SMS-ku on the service number, and thereby advance to pay a certain amount of system services. Amount paid into "units" (1 unit = 1 cent) and falls on a interim account in the further fee is deducted from the positioning of the interim accounts.The minimum quantum of pricing - $ 1.062 with VAT, so that to use for the development of the ruble Jeans-Pepsi (from $ 1.00 on the balance sheet) will not work. Why was it necessary to arrange these shamanistic dances with an intermediate score, and "Unity"? Hard to say, most likely developed due to delays in billing on the old billing.
However, not all that bad in the MTS-Search, corporate clients can pretty well to save. For example, in the "Mobile employees, you can almost get a 50% discount on the cost of each request. Of course, not just so, and for a monthly subscription fee of $ 25 to $ 1500 depending on the number of employees included in the system.
Third - once?
Unfortunately, the Beeline Moscow did not get into this review because of lack of more or less user-friendly interface management services LBS. Although at one time we were promised a lot of interesting, a quote from an official response two years ago:"In the near future we also plan to launch services to the AOP, but we will not be limited to one service, and make a wider range than those of our competitors. Work in this direction are underway."
The results of ongoing work and a wide range of "interested persons can be found on the website operator in the" Customer service ", to find a link to" Mobile Locator "It was not easy.Careful examination of the description allowed two main conclusions:
- Work on a commercial version of the service was launched, but successfully completed during the creation of SMS and MMS interfaces
- In developing the dominant principle of "do no harm!", Focused on the prevention of unauthorized object positioning. A pair of quotes from the description of "services" - if it can be considered valid:
"Goal is to get a message like: L> Request location Latitude. <BUKVYRAZRESHENIYA> allow <BUKVYZAPRETA> prohibited. Possible answers:
Ignore the message. LATITUDE not receive target location, but can tire GOAL their requests, each of which will result in an objective of this message. Then ...
AIM can send 684: BUKVYZAPRETA. And the rest of the day posts Latitude. ... "
Position statement on this issue is more or less clear, and certainly has a right to exist. Perhaps we will not "bother purpose" (ie our readership) attempts to even the 5-minute possession, "the attendees Mobile-Review.
