Wireless operator EMT, the Estonian subsidiary of TeliaSonera, today announced successful tests of BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS technology. BlueSky Positioning’s GPS silicon is embedded on a SIM card, allowing non-GPS phones to use geo-location services. EMT is the leading operator in Estonia with 47% market share.

“Our preliminary test results with A-GPS in-SIM technology have demonstrated compelling accuracy coupled with a fast TTFF (time-to-first-fix), comparable to any commercial A-GPS handsets in the market. A-GPS SIM technology opens up a whole range of possibilities for both EMT and its subscribers,” said Argo Kivilo, R&D Manager at EMT.

“Not only this, but in light of the newly updated EU E112 directive, operators must be able to provide location data on nearly all emergency calls on their network within the next 18 months. BlueSky Positioning’s technology will be essential in ensuring this happens.”

The tests were conducted using both GPRS and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Services Data) for retrieving assistance data in a live 3G network.EMT tested the SIM card with 13 different phones from low end to high-end. EMT Estonia is the first network operator to test a USSD connection for GPS assistance data, allowing BlueSky Positioning’s A-GPS solution to be used with low end mobile phones, even if the model does not support GPRS. Another benefit is that USSD can be used concurrently with a voice call.

Bluesky Positioning has already signed up SIM card vendor Sagem Orga (Safran Group) to sell its technology to wireless operators. The start-up has also been working with Telmap to test their turn-by-turn navigation application Telmap Navigator with the A-GPS SIM and a Nokia 3600 handset (see picture). The software was modified to retrieve the GPS information from the SIM card instead of a built-in GPS.

The technology developed by Bluesky Positioning not only holds the potential to GPS-enable pretty much any cell phone, but also to give wireless operators control over the LBS applications used on handsets on their networks. This technology, once in mass production, is a potential game changer for wireless operators that could finally make revenue out of LBS.