BERWYN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new federal lawsuit alleges that three of the largest telecommunications companies in the world are illegally conspiring to eliminate an innovative technology that allows police, fire departments and other emergency responders to more accurately locate mobile phone users during disasters and other emergency situations.
TruePosition, a Philadelphia-area company, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania this morning against defendants that include Sweden’s Ericsson, France’s Alcatel-Lucent, and San Diego-based Qualcomm. The lawsuit alleges the three companies “hijacked” the Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) that govern which mobile positioning technologies will be in the standard for future LTE “4G” wireless networks. The complaint accuses the defendants of blocking the adoption of TruePosition’s already existing and broadly deployed technologies into the new standards for LTE, while at the same time ensuring that their own unproven technologies were included into the new standards.
TruePosition’s technology, which has been in use in emergency response, law enforcement and national security settings for nearly a decade, is the only current high-accuracy network-based location technology that has been proven to work with sufficient accuracy to meet FCC standards, and the only one to do so reliably inside buildings. The company’s positioning technology, Uplink Time Difference of Arrival (U-TDOA), was included in the standards for the past two generations of wireless networks – 2G and 3G and has been successfully and widely deployed in the United States by two major wireless service providers to support the E9-1-1 emergency location system.
More than 65 percent of emergency 9-1-1 calls in the United States now come through mobile telephones.
“In our complaint, we allege these large multinationals have illegally conspired to eliminate a proven, widely deployed technology, purely for their own economic gain,” said Stephen Stuut, Chief Executive Officer of TruePosition.
“When it comes to locating 9-1-1 callers and protecting U.S. citizens, no one should be playing games with public safety,” Mr. Stuut added.
A Proven, Superior Technology
TruePosition, owned by Denver-based Liberty Media, is a leader in the research, development, manufacturing and sale of high accuracy location products that operate over cellular networks. TruePosition products assist police, fire, and ambulance services in saving lives by locating more than 60 million cellular callers in the United States each year. The technology also enables law enforcement more effectively to combat criminal activity and terrorist threats.
TruePosition’s U-TDOA technology has been engineered to provide the same highly accurate positioning for LTE 4G networks as it has for the prior generations of network technology. U-TDOA is the only high accuracy mobile positioning technology deployed today that can find cell phone users regardless of the type of phone in use or the software residing on that phone. It is the only technology that can accurately locate mobile phones indoors, underground or when trapped under dense debris or rubble. Such technology can be critically important to emergency response during natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes or earthquakes.
Standard Setting Organizations (SSOs) Also Defendants
Also named in the complaint are the standard setting organizations themselves: Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and its organizational SSO partner, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
3GPP is currently engaged in setting standards for the fourth generation (4G) of mobile telephone technology, LTE (Long Term Evolution). According to the complaint, “inclusion in the 3GPP standard is vital to commercial success. Exclusion from the standard guarantees commercial failure and, in most instances, absolute foreclosure from the market.”
According to clear SSO procedures, U-TDOA’s proven track record, technological superiority and inclusion in prior standards should have made for automatic inclusion as an option in the new 4G LTE standard.
Despite these clear SSO rules, however, it is alleged that defendants Ericsson, Qualcomm, and Alcatel-Lucent conspired to delay and preclude standardization of U-TDOA for LTE, and to eliminate competition from TruePosition in the marketplace. According the complaint, the purpose was to position their own developing technologies for success and – in the case of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent – to further entrench their dominant positions in the market for radio access network (RAN) equipment by constructing barriers to entry by competing vendors.
Details of the Lawsuit
The lawsuit claims that over the course of three years – and acting under the authority of the SSOs – representatives of Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Qualcomm, in their roles as Chairmen of key 3GPP committees, abused their authority and power to seize unfair competitive advantages for Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA), a positioning technology in which they hold economic interests. This is despite the fact that OTDOA has never been successfully deployed anywhere in the world.
"While the technology is complex, this lawsuit is not," said Stuart Salen, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of TruePosition. "The defendants, through the guise of creating objective standards for the telecommunication industry, conspired to exclude a competitor.”
"This is precisely the type of conduct that the antitrust laws are intended to prevent," Mr. Salen added.
By violating the clear procedures and due process requirements of 3GPP and ETSI, the lawsuit alleges Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Qualcomm:
- Halted the timely standardization of TruePosition’s U-TDOA technology, while accelerating standardization of their own unproven positioning technology;
- Filed late reports and other submissions in favor of their technology – in clear violation of SSO procedural rules – so that no one but representatives of Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Qualcomm had time to read, understand or comment prior to their adoption;
- Imposed unreasonable requirements on TruePosition’s U-TDOA technology – far in excess of those required of their own technology – to keep the U-TDOA technology from being adopted into the standard;
- Steered control over TruePosition’s U-TDOA technology to 3GPP Working Groups that the defendants’ representatives chaired and controlled, for the purpose of killing or impeding U-TDOA standardization; and,
- Prevented 3GPP from standardizing U-TDOA in competitive “standalone” positioning products, to ensure that any use of U-TDOA positioning technologies had to be embedded in the RAN equipment that Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent manufacture.
It is notable that U-TDOA was originally excluded from the 2G standards in favor of Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) technology, a precursor to OTDOA. It was only after the failure of E-OTD to meet FCC location accuracy requirements, and its replacement on thousands of cell towers by U-TDOA that U-TDOA was added to the 2G standard.
Ultimately, TruePosition CEO Stephen Stuut is confident TruePosition’s superior technology will become part of the LTE 4G standard.
“Americans should not settle for inferior technology when it comes to public safety and security,” Mr. Stuut said.
About TruePosition
TruePosition (www.trueposition.com) is a leader in location determination and intelligence solutions that help protect citizens, combat crime, and save lives. TruePosition U-TDOA is a location technology that can accurately and reliably locate any mobile phone in any environment, where other location technologies such as A-GPS cannot. This makes TruePosition U-TDOA uniquely suited to meet the mission-critical location-based safety and security requirements of enterprises and government agencies. These solutions include future-proof technologies, innovative applications, and comprehensive networking and systems services. TruePosition is owned by Liberty Media Corporation.