Section 9.1. Microsoft Location Server Terminology

9.1. Microsoft Location Server Terminology

Before I get into the details of how Microsoft Location Server works, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the following terminology :

Mobile Operator

A company that provides communication services for mobile devices, such as cell phones and pagers. For example, in the United States, some companies that provide mobile communication services, such as Sprint, Verizon, and Nextel, fall into this category.

Provisioning

Provisioning is the process of registering an enterprise user with Microsoft Location Server. A user who is registered with Microsoft Location Server is called a provisioned user. Each provisioned user must have an associated mobile device number (or phone number) that can be used by the mobile operator to identify the user's real-time location.

Provider

A provider is a software plug-in for Microsoft Location Server developed to communicate with a specific network carrier, such as a cell phone company, either to obtain the location of a mobile device or to send a Short Message Service (SMS) message to a mobile device. Providers used for getting the location of a mobile device are called location providers , and providers used for sending SMS messages are called notification providers . Location and notification providers are unique to each mobile operator, and this is where the value of the Microsoft Location Server comes into the pictureit eliminates the carrier-specific complexity and provides an aggregated set of APIs for the developers to build applications.

Locatable Contact

A locatable contact is a provisioned user who can be contacted by another provisioned user within an enterprise.

With this introduction to the key terminology used in Microsoft Location Server, let's see how it works to obtain real-time location from the cellular phone networks.