FEASIBILITY STUDY DOCUMENT

Document Objective:
The feasibility study plays a major role in the analysis of the system. The very decision
of the system analyst, to design a particular system depends whether the system is
feasible or not. Hence, the feasibility study forms the very basic of the system. The
objective of this document is to underline the feasibility study of the project.

Author:
Pratik R. Pandit

Version:
Draft

Shareholders:
Pratik Pandit
Ameya Vilankar
Shrinad Inamdar
Prof. Amit Gothiwarekar
I.T. Department

Project Name:
Location-based Services Using GSM localization

Project Description and Scope:

A location-based service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible
with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of
the geographical position of the mobile device 

LBS services can be used in a variety of contexts, such as health, work, personal life,
etc.  LBS services include services to identify a location of a person or object, such as
discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the whereabouts of a friend or
employee. LBS services include parcel tracking and vehicle tracking services. LBS can
include mobile commerce when taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at
customers based on their current location. They include personalized weather services
and even location-based games. 
The explosive growth of mobile devices including phones, personal digital assistants
and pagers presents tremendous opportunities for companies to increase sales,
improve productivity, and provide better service. By leveraging location-based services
in your mobile application, you can dramatically improve the adoption rate also take
advantage of a whole new class of applications that aren’t possible on desktop devices. 
Making your mobile applications location-aware can be complex and expensive, since
you often need to aggregate technology and content from a variety of sources, which is
often stored as large objects within a database. The confluence of several factors are
significantly increasing the deployment of mobile applications, which will likely result in
the rapid adoption of location-based services. 
Whenever a user opens our application on mobile device the user will be welcomed by
a note displaying their current location. On the homepage, advertisings will be displayed
depending upon the user location. On the home page, a static map will be displayed
depending upon the user location as a good visual feature. Depending upon the
location, important locations i.e. historical monuments or favorite public parks and
places will be listed and shown to user under a menu. Whenever a registered ‘friend’ is
logged into the cell site as the user, he will get listed on the friends list. Also both will be
notified that their friend is in the nearby area. There will be a search option to search for
available services and a menu wherein user be able to login into site and search for
available listed services. Our main aim is to develop an intuitive search system in which
users need not provide the location data. One of the most significant challenges in LBS
is privacy. The receiving of the location from the cell phone and sending of the data will
be completely computerized. The user will not be required to reveal his current location
to any authority manually. This ensures privacy and makes the users more comfortable.
Location services, which provide information specific to a location, are a key part of this
portfolio.
Location-based services offer many opportunities. For the mobile user, some examples
of location-based services are:
 Requesting the nearest business or service, such as an ATM or restaurant
 Locating people on a map displayed on the mobile phone
 Location-based mobile advertising
LBS provide a set of capabilities to rapidly deploy seamless location-based services that
are global in coverage. It provides application developers with a set of pre-integrated
interfaces that support various sources of location service providers worldwide using a
single, consistent API. The application is not dependent on specific vendor tools or LBS
service providers. Because multiple providers can be accommodated, any failure by
providers is transparent to the application and its users.  It provides a robust framework
for the integration of core enterprise systems, local databases, and third-party online
services.

Feasibility Study:
The feasibility study can be categorized into: 
 Technical Feasibility:
It determines whether the technology needed for the proposed system is available and
how this technology can be integrated into the organization. Technical evaluation must
also assess if the existing system can be upgraded to use the new technology and
whether the organization has the expertise to use it. The technology needed for the
proposed system is not extremely complicated. The only technical challenge in the
proposed system is how an application will get access to location which is always
known to the cell phone. Developing and designing the mobile application will not be a
difficult job otherwise. Creating a location-wise database and maintaining it will also not
be difficult. The end user must be also equipped with the pre-mentioned hardware and
software requirements. Since only GPRS enabled cell phone is required, the hardware
requirements are not much. 

 Economic Feasibility:
The economic feasibility of the system is mainly concerned with its financial aspects. It
determines whether the project is economically feasible.
As the hardware and software are already available, no further investment is to be
made in that direction, the only cost involved is that of implementing the system. 

 Organizational Feasibility:
In the case that an organization uses this application, it is user friendly and
straightforward to use. This application will benefit users that want to find information
about their current location by just using their cell phone and without asking them to
reveal their current location to any human entity.

 Operational Feasibility:
There are two aspects of operational feasibility for the system. One aspect is that of
technical performance and other is of acceptance.
Technical Performance determines whether a system can provide correct and timely
data required for the end user’s personnel. The GSM Localization technology used is
accurate from 100ft to a few kilometers of the location. 
Since the application is available free of cost and uses a platform used by majority cell
phone users in India, acceptance is guaranteed.

Benefits Expected:
 LBS (location based systems) services will be beneficial to identify a location of a
person or object, such as discovering the nearest banking cash machine or the
whereabouts of a friend or employee.
 LBS (location based systems) services will help in parcel tracking and vehicle tracking
services
 LBS (location based systems) will benefit customers and commuters using mobile
commerce for taking the form of coupons or advertising directed at customers based
on their current location.
 Other benefits include personalized weather services for accurate weather report and
even location-based games for entertainment purposes.
 LBS (location based systems) services can be beneficial in a variety of contexts, such
as health, work, personal life, etc.
Project Justification:
Since the turn of this century mobile phones have become an essential part of our lives.
Our mobiles go where we go. It is pretty safe to say that mobiles can be used to track
location extremely efficiently. 
Commercially available Mobile Location Tracking Applications come at a price. The
heavily acclaimed GPS module is also costly. We will develop an application which
would make use of the immense advertising market so as to provide an extremely user
friendly and low cost (free as far as possible) services.
Similar application has tasted success in European countries but has still not being
developed or implemented in India. The current technology used by some operators to
provide LBS is extremely basic and outmoded. 

Costs:
 Cost of developing the application:
Cost obtained from effort estimation. Effort estimation is required to find the number of
person working on the project, number of duration and lastly cost. Three people are
working on the development of the project, and the duration of the project is 8 months.
The other expenses include the hardware cost, travelling etc.

 Cost of maintaining the server:

This cost includes the cost of maintaining the server. The server will have three
administrators who will monitor and maintain the system. The cost will include the salary
paid to the administrators.

Risks and Issues:

The fundamental concept involved in this project is obtaining the location for the
broadcast messages. Thus the application would fail to work if the service provider does
not provide with the location in the CBS. The application is developed for Symbian
platform. The application will fail to work if the platform is discontinued. Also, there is a
risk of GPS services being deployed on mid-range mobiles which will make this
technology useless on mid-range phones.

Time Scale:
The project will require 8-9 months to be ready for deployment.
The first half of the period required will be needed for analysis and designing with the
other half for coding and testing.
The coding of the application and its GUI will take up most of the coding time. The other
part will be allotted to the development of the application at the server side.

Recommendation For The Management:

We propose this alternative only.