Broadcom Integrates Wi-FiPS from Skyhook

By Contributor Wireless and Mobile News on October 1, 2008 12:42 PM

Broadcom Corporation announced that it will upgrade its location based services (LBS) infrastructure to add Wi-Fi positioning to its LBS portfolio of services.

Broadcom will use the Wi-Fi Positioning System developed by Skyhook Wireless, Inc., which pioneeredthe development of Wi-Fi positioning. The Broadcom LBS services business currently supports over 20 million active customers in over 170 countries; having provided over one billion extended ephemeris, or Long Term Orbits(TM) (LTO) downloads to date.

Using GPS alone to determine a location works well in outdoor environments, but the ability to determine one's location in this way is often impaired in deep urban and indoor environments.

Broadcom will integrate the Skyhook solution with its chipsets and LBS solutions to enable hybrid location positioning. The Skyhook Wireless(TM) solution produces accurate location information by detecting Wi-Fi access points and comparing them against a known database of geo-located points.

This upgraded LBS infrastructure connects directly to Wi-Fi access points and cellular base stations, enabling device makers and applications developers to provide consumer-ready location based technology that works quickly and accurately, even in deep urban and indoor environments. The Wi-Fi positioning upgrade will further secure Broadcom's position as the premiere supplier of hosted LBS products, enabling customers who adopt Broadcom's unique end-to-end solutions to expand LBS into new frontiers of availability and performance.

For more information regarding Broadcom's location based service products, please visit the company's website at http://www.broadcom.com/products/GPS/Location-Based-Services.