Positioning within the GSM Network

Within FIG Commission 5 Working Group 5.3 the new special study group “New Positioning Techniques and Infrastructure ” has been established. This study group will deal with infrastructure relevant for positioning. An infrastructure of this kind is the mobile phone network. This paper gives an insight into one type of mobile phone network, the GSM network. To understand the general possibilities available for positioning using mobile phones one has to distinguish between different locations and modes of positioning. The location may be at the mobile phone (handset-based) or within the mobile phone network (net-based). The latter case has to be divided into positioning actively pursued by the mobile phone user or positioning using the GSM system intrinsic information. The second uses the mobile data without the knowledge of the mobile user in an anonymous way. An overview about the positioning methods, their assignment to the different positioning modes and to different accuracy levels is given in this paper. The structure of the GSM network as well as the requirements, that have to be available for the different positioning methods, are outlined. Special focus is given on the GSM system intrinsic positioning information.