Design wins
Sarantel is not without its design wins, however. Coinciding with the publication of its survey, Sarantel has announced ruggedised mobile phone specialist Sonim Technologies has selected Sarantel's LBS Pro miniature GPS antenna for the new Sonim XP3 Quest mobile phone.
Bob Plaschke, CEO of Sonim Technologies, Inc. said: "The excellent performance delivered by the Sarantel antenna fits right in with our aim of delivering a product that meets the needs of our demanding customers. Those needs include GPS capability that works under extreme conditions and that's what we and Sarantel have been able to deliver."
It's probably through early implementations of its technology such as this that Sarantel can demonstrate to the broader mobile phone ecosystem the need for its products.
With the processing power of mobile devices set to go exponential with the latest generation of ARM based processors and Intel's increasing interest in the low-power processor market, there is bound to be an explosion of the kind of applications already popular on devices like the iPhone.
Sarantel is betting that LBS is set to play a big part in this wave and it's easy to imagine a fair bit of consumer demand. Just how much, however, won't become apparent until the rest of the mobile phone market catches on.
