PoLTE – a provider of cloud-based location technologies – announced they’re winding down their operations and deprecating support for Location APIs. If you currently use their Cellular or WiFi based positioning, you’re looking for an reliable alternative that’s easy to switch to. We’ve received dozens of messages in the past few days from businesses that have lost visibility around their operations and want things back up and running.
We, at Unwired Labs, extend our warmest greetings to businesses looking for an alternative to PoLTE’s location APIs. We’re offering an extended evaluation to businesses looking to transition away from PoLTE and are happy to meet your team halfway with integration and testing. Put us in touch with your developers and let us take care of the rest.
What to look for in a location provider?
Accuracy
We know data quality is the most important element of any location service. If you’re using WiFi positioning, this becomes paramount, as WiFi APs are highly mobile and can be easily positioned in a different location. Only a database that’s updated at a high frequency can ensure accurate positioning. If using Cellular, your devices need a service that can recognize CatM1, NB, 5G or any newer technologies with a recent rollout.
The amount of visibility you have on your devices is also dependent on the quality of triangulation algorithms in place. Unwired Labs’ LocationAPI has been improving on its algorithm for 8 years. Our geolocation APIs are backed by 200 Mil+ cells and 4Bil+ WiFi APs that are updated in real time. The confidence benchmarks behind our triangulation API are set to 99%, which translates to an accurate real world position every single time. We also use fresh data to dynamically change weightages assigned to Cell/ WiFi identifiers in our database, which impacts how triangulation is done.
Reliability
Location APIs are an essential component of your business operations. If your client demands GDPR compliance and high availability, it’s only natural for you to look for a provider that does the same. Your ideal location partner must be in the space for a long time and have deep expertise in positioning — else you’ll end up with another PoLTE-like situation in your hands
Unwired Labs is completely GDPR compliant. We do not require your devices to directly communicate with us and we do not store the content of your API calls to our endpoints.
Our data centers are georedudant, have multiple failovers, and are highly available. We offer a 99.9% uptime with options for more if required. We process over 2 billion API calls a day and serve both small and large businesses worldwide. Our enterprise customers include the likes of Vodafone, Telit, AT&T, Panasonic and more.
Affordability
We recognize that managing assets is a numbers game with paper-thin margins. On top of this, your platform probably supports different types of assets; some might require continuous monitoring, others need occasional lookups and some devices might even be disposable. The other scant resource is time – just as pricing, there is only so much you can afford to spend on a provider. Your core business is managing your/ your clients’ assets; everything else needs to just work, without too much time spent in development and testing.
Unwired Labs accommodates your device-specific distinctions in a single package with pricing that’s customizable for each of your use cases. Our documentation is extensive and our APIs can be integrated in a couple of hours. If you’re unsure where to begin, just share the make/model of your device and we’ll share next steps.
If you’re impacted by PoLTE, or are looking for a geolocation partner, reach out to us with your requirements and get a conversation started.
You can signup for a free plan with Unwired Labs here.