Indoor Location technology deployed at MWC 2014

Sunday evening, on the eve of the week of this year's Mobile World Congress, a press release was sent out announcing that this year's MWC would have "one of the world's biggest Wi-Fi networks," with over 1200 access points covering over 240,000 square meters. This is enough to make anyone who's attended a previous MWC conference say "whew! about time!"

But deep in the press release is another, even more exciting, announcement: "GSMA is introducing new functionality in its GSMA mobile app... geo-localised routes." That's right - this year's MWC will include indoor location services, including mapping and navigation.

The press release doesn't elaborate, but the indoor location technology for the MWC Wi-Fi network and mobile app is being provided by PoleStar, a start-up company based on France with offices in the USA. PoleStar is one of over 130 companies profiled and analyzed in our recently-updated report on Indoor Location Positioning Technologies. The Fira Barcelona is the largest-ever deployment of PoleStar's NAO Campus platform.

We'll report more details on the exact technology deployed at MWC tomorrow, but in general, PoleStar's technology combines Wi-Fi fingerprinting, sensor fusion motion sensing, and their own "BlueSpot" beacons based on BLE (Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy) radio. We've written about PoleStar's technology in our blog. We'll report as soon as possible on the exact technology deployed at MWC, and give our impressions of using it.

We hope everyone at MWC enjoys the conference - we always do!

For more on the 2014 Mobile World Congress, indoor location technology, and other innovative mobile technology, follow us on our blog or on Twitter.

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