Digital Decisions
Analog wins a stay of execution.
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Depending on how you look at it, the analog cellular network has been sent to death row or it has been promised a five-year reprieve.
The Federal Communications Commission decided last summer to end mandatory analog service in 2007. After that, wireless providers will be able to allocate analog bandwidth to more popular digital services if they choose.
The greatest impact on trucking will probably be in metropolitan areas, mostly on private fleets. On the supplier side, the impact will fall on providers of onboard systems for those markets.
HDT asked three major providers of onboard systems for their assessment of the coming changes.
HDT: How do you regard the FCC's August decision on the analog network? How will it affect you and your customers?
Tom Allen, chief operating officer, @Road Inc. "We see it as a good thing and as an opportunity. Clearly the FCC is trying to allocate bandwidth in an orderly fashion, and in a way that creates more capabilities for everyone, including the carriers.
"We don't offer applications on the analog network. However, CDPD is the data side of analog. The fact that it has a longer life helps us manage the migration for our customers.
"We see it as an opportunity to offer more value-added services. If you look at the way our business is structured, we have a service provider model so we need to link our customers to us via networking. So anything that delivers us more bandwidth enables us to provide more enriched applications."
CDPD stands for Cellular Digital Packet Data, a digital system built on top of analog networks.
Les Dole, president and CEO, Cadec Corp.: "The biggest piece that we were using has to do with a protocol called CDPD. We have customers who went down that road. In a sense that (FCC decision) protects their investment for five years. It's a long time in the wireless business. It's an eternity."
Richard M. Geib, president and COO, Tripmaster Corp.: "Tripmaster's mobile communications offerings don't use analog technology. Tripmaster uses two providers of terrestrial data coverage, plus satellite networks. All of them use digital technology. Neither Tripmaster nor our customers will be affected by the decision to limit analog networks.
Tripmaster's terrestrial providers are Cingular and Motient. Tripmaster uses Wireless Matrix (formerly Norcom Networks) for multi-mode satellite/terrestrial communication.
HDT: What functionalities are fleets looking for today?
Tom Allen, @Road Inc.: "I would say they would like to put more sensors on their trucks. They would like more real-time information about the condition of the engine, for example. I'll categorize it this way: they want more security-oriented applications."
Les Dole, Cadec: "What the customers are really looking for is choice. They want to get the best coverage for the particular locations they're in. They'd like to work the best solution in the right regions. They want to be able to work different companies. They want to keep their costs as low as possible on the communications side.
"There's one other piece to that. They would like to only have the necessary data, because you pay by data. They would like only critical data to be used in the communications world. Save the rest of the data until the truck comes home.
"The two issues are cost and coverage. That's what's going on. I will say that everybody wishes there was ubiquitous, one type of one-size-fits all (wireless service)."
Richard M. Geib, Tripmaster: "Today, the message we hear is that fleets are looking for reliable solutions at affordable cost, with a hedge to protecting their technology investment against obsolescence. They want 'leading edge' technology, not 'bleeding edge' technology.
"Fleets want to integrate onboard systems with other business systems, such as routing and scheduling, dispatching, payroll, customer service and order fulfillment. They also want traditional offerings, such as driver performance monitoring, trip-recording, event analysis, hours-of-service compliance, fuel-tax reporting, as well as the hands-free, state-line crossing and automatic GPS. And, they want simplicity -- for the driver, the dispatcher and everyone else involved.
"Everyone seems to be interested in wireless technology these days. 'I want to be able to see where my trucks are,' and 'I want to get rid of those # cell phones' are phrases we hear often."
HDT: How does your company plan to meet these needs? Have you recently introduced or will you be introducing new products/services?
Tom Allen, @Road Inc.: "We're working on new applications, and since there's going to be lower pricing in these new (wireless) networks, there will be powerful economic reasons to move to new technologies. And as the networks improve, the economics of those applications will get better.
"We have always been an open-carrier type of provider and it has always been our intention to support whatever wireless networks are out there. The reason the analog network needs to go away is to free up bandwidth so these newer technologies can come online.
"The beauty of our solution is that all that's transparent to the customer. We deal with the wireless network problems for them so most of our customers have no idea what wireless network they're on or even what technology's in place.
"We enable customers to have mixed fleets. Whatever coverage is most appropriate for them, they can have it. For example, we have a single customer who may be on Verizon in one place, AT&T in another -- and another whole group somewhere else on Nextel. Yet it's completely transparent to the way they use the system.
"Whatever changes in technology come about, we view them as huge opportunities. We intend to add as many high-value services as we can. Because we have a subscription model and customers pay us every month, the more high-value applications we can sell, the more recurring revenue we get.
"The second thing is the service model. It's not just we sell you software, we sell you a bunch of devices, go have fun with it. We take away all the implementation risk because you don't have to pay for our stuff until it's working."
Les Dole, Cadec: "What Cadec has done is support Nextel, AT&T, Cingular, Sprint, Verizon and VoiceStream. All those data packets for all those companies are currently supported on the Mobius platform. You've got to have that flexibility or you lock them down and it runs into problems, both from a cost point of view and a coverage point of view.
"We have an intelligent system that can identify different data types. By the way, it's patented. It's our communications manager, and it can literally look at the data types and the customer can set it up for critical data. For instance, I want to locate my trucks, I want to message to my trucks but then I only want to communicate things that have, say, gone wrong in the delivery, exception reporting."
Mobius is a line of Cadec onboard computers.
Richard M. Geib, Tripmaster: "Tripmaster is working on new products, some of which we aren't talking about just yet, and some of which are very near release. Enhancements to our wireless offerings are probably the most exciting. Both our wireless LAN and wireless WAN offerings are compatible with Tripmaster products introduced since 1997.
"Some fleets are looking for basic, cost-effective solutions for driver and vehicle monitoring. For these customers, Tripmaster is introducing a completely new product line, the TKO series for providing much of our current product content at a fraction of the cost.
"We offer three models, from very basic Model 100 to the top-of-the-line Model 300, which offers GPS automatic location ID, electronic DOT logs, fuel-tax reporting and almost all the other traditional onboard computer offerings. While some expansion and integration capabilities are somewhat limited with the TKO, this is a terrific new product for fleets who want a stand-alone onboard computer at very affordable pricing.
"Every fleet seems to have different requirements for integration, so flexibility is important. One way we do this is by partnering with other 'best-of-breed' solutions providers, such as UPS Logistics Technologies, Systems Applications Engineering, Versyss Commercial Systems, Dynamic Mobile Data, Wireless Matrix and others."
LAN stands for Local Area Network, short-range communications within a warehouse, for example. WAN stands for Wide Area Network, broad-range communications that might involve long-distance telephone or the Internet.
To learn more
@Road Inc.
Fremont, Calif.
www.road.com
Cadec Corp.
Londonderry, N.H.
www.cadec.com
Tripmaster Corp.
Arlington, Texas
www.tripmaster.com
