Aspects related to geo localization based on mobiles´ measurements in WCDMA wireless networks

The launch of smart phones and the myriad of 3G services that they support require that mobiles´ geo-location in wireless networks go beyond service localization, emergency call service, and home location billing. Operators aiming for more and more cost efficient network operations need to consider mobiles´ positioning for UTRAN internal utilization such as location-assisted handover as well as for network optimization and troubleshooting such as dropped and blocked calls/sessions and detection of coverage holes. The paper gives a brief overview of geo-location techniques generally used in mobile networks and proposes a solution suitable for mobiles´ positioning in WCDMA networks based on phone measurements. The paper discusses aspects related to the characteristics of geo-location in the context of the wireless environment, particularly WCDMA, and the challenges imposed on the calculation of the mobile geo-location estimate. The paper discusses how a proposed solution based on the phone´s measurements solves the WCDMA challenges. and what are the achieved performances.