📶 What is hidden in LBS?

Many of you probably could see in our application an icon in the form of a circle with the mysterious name LBS.
In order for this abbreviation not to seem so mysterious, and clicking on the icon turned out to be a very useful and understandable option of the application, we will tell you in more detail what LBS is 

📍Let us start with a statement that is difficult to argue with that most of us would like to receive accurate information about the location of the tracked object, without any delays. Perhaps, in the ideal world of GPS tracking this may exist, but in the real world we often face certain difficulties that affect the quality of the GPS signal.

So, to obtain an accurate location continuously high-speed internet is required. And if your vehicle moves in a region where there is no internet, then it becomes impossible to track your vehicle. Moreover, GPS signals might get lost for other reasons like dense areas, underground routes, tunnels and mountain areas. Yes, even advanced technologies are not always able to overcome the forces of nature 🌿🌞
In such a situation, if the GPS signal is lost, your tracking system won’t be able to help you out when you most need it.

❗And in these moments “Location-Based Service”, commonly known as LBS, can really help you!
Location-based service is designed for tracking your vehicle with the help of cellular towers. So, a vehicle is located by the coordinates of the closest GSM base station. LBS is not as accurate as GPS, but it’s very helpful when GPS positioning data is unavailable.

LBS makes use of embedded satellite navigation receivers or network-based technologies such as cell identification or triangulation from the location of the base station transmission cells to determine the position.

In this case, the LBS tracker sends data to the software with additional parameters.
These parameters help software in identifying the location of the closest cellular tower to the device:

• MCC - Mobile Country Code identifies the country code

• MNC - Mobile Network code is a unique code that identifies a mobile network operator

• LAC - Location Area Code. Each location area consists of a set of base stations that are grouped together to optimize signaling. Each location has its own unique number.

• Cell ID - Cell ID is a unique number used to identify each base transceiver station (BTS) or sector of a BTS within a location area code.

In our application the LBS-position option allows you to display the LBS data from the device, while you can see it simultaneously with the GPS data.
In order for the LBS button to be displayed, the device must start sending LBS parameters in messages.

Check if your device can send LBS data (at least 4 parameters: mcc, mnc, lac, cell_ID), enable it in the device configuration. Then the LBS button will be displayed in the panel on the unit card.

Well, LBS doesn’t seem so mysterious anymore?😉