MobileCom Wars
JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
When technology startup Aether Systems went public three years ago, the two leading challengers to Qualcomm's popular OmniTRACS system were HighwayMaster and American Mobile Satellite. HighwayMaster provided communications over the widely deployed analog cellular network. American Mobile Satellite had just introduced a dual-mode, satellite and ground-based system called MobileMax2.
Today, both technologies belong to Aether, which also offers an array of vehicle monitoring systems, including trailer tracking — something Qualcomm does not offer at the moment. Now Aether, based in the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills, Md., sees itself as Qualcomm's main challenger in trucking markets, particularly in the truckload sector.
"We think it's primarily a two-dog race and we've got a very aggressive strategy to win in that marketplace as well as the trailer tracking and the AVL (Automatic Vehicle Locating) marketplace," said Mike Brown, VP sales and marketing for Aether's Transportation and Logistics Division.
Even in a two-dog race, the second dog has a long way to go.
"We have (Qualcomm) at around 70% of the market share on our data," said Brown. "We have more than 50,000 installations of truck mobile communications. Those are in the United States. Qualcomm is in the 300,000 range to 270,000 range."
Qualcomm, which had long claimed an 80% share of the truckload market, said it currently holds a 74% share — still a commanding lead by any measure.
How does Aether intend to catch up?
Brown and Frank Briganti, president of Aether's Transportation and Logistics Div., described an aggressive effort based on acquisitions and the evolution of acquired products. Aether's acquisitions have absorbed at least a decade's worth of trucking mobilecom history.
TECHNOLOGY EVOLVES
For example, Aether bought the trucking products and services of Motient Corp. in 2000. Until April of that year, Motient had been known as American Mobile Satellite, which had launched a satellite communications system similar to Qualcomm's in the late 1980s. That deal brought MobileMax2 into the Aether fold. MobileMax is Aether's flagship trucking product and competes directly with Qualcomm's OmniTRACS.
Like OmniTRACS, MobileMax offers text messaging and GPS location data with communication over a high-orbit satellite for maximum coverage. But MobileMax automatically switches to less expensive communications over the Ardis ground-based packet-data network where available. MobileMax's wireless satellite and Ardis communications are still provided by Motient. Aether buys that capacity "wholesale" and "retails" it to fleets.
Brown said Aether recently added a MobileMax feature called Proximity Alert that sends messages automatically without input from the driver. Proximity Alert can be programmed to send a message when a vehicle arrives at or leaves a certain location, when it has been at one location for too long or when it departs from or enters a defined, "geo-fenced" area.
Earlier this year, Aether bought the trucking products of @Track Communications just before @Track changed its name to MinorPlanet Systems USA. @Track marketed trucking products that included the TrackWare trailer tracking system and 20/20V, a remote vehicle monitoring system that does not require driver input. Aether continues to offer 20/20V.
But @Track's best-known trucking product was HighwayMaster, the analog cellular voice and data system that launched in the early 1990s. In fact, HighwayMaster had been the company's original name.
"So we've spent much of the past several months integrating those businesses, mostly bringing @Track businesses under the Aether umbrella," Brown explained.
Actually, HighwayMaster service hasn't changed. Aether isn't seeking new customers and serves existing ones while encouraging them to switch to MobileMax.
TrackWare, on the other hand, has changed a lot. As originally designed, the TrackWare trailer-tracking unit featured a small but visible rod antenna in a unit that mounted on the top front of a trailer. It was quick and easy to install but announced to the world that the trailer was on someone's radar screen. Worse, it was relatively easy to reach and disable.
"We revised the hardware design from an externally mounted device to bring it inside the trailer so it was more stealth," said Brown.
Aether also brought tracking data to the Internet, improving customer access to information. The original TrackWare worked on proprietary systems using the Windows and AS/400 platforms.
Aether calls the new trailer-tracking product TrailerMax. TrailerMax provides GPS reporting; added sensors can indicate whether the trailer is loaded or unloaded, hooked or unhooked and whether the door is open or closed. Data between trailer and the Aether service center moves over the ground-based Cellemetry network, which overlays the analog cellular network.
HIGH ORBIT TRACKING
Meanwhile, Aether developed a new, different tracking product called GeoTracs, which it introduced at the ATA meeting in October. According to Frank Briganti, GeoTracs differs from TrailerMax in a number of ways, the most significant being its means of communication. While TrailerMax uses a ground-based system, GeoTracs communicates over a high-orbit satellite.
"Having the satellite capability means there's really no place for (a trailer) to hide. There's no out-of-coverage with an L-Band satellite in North America," Briganti said.
GeoTracs is also an exception-based system. Rather than reports based on a clock, GeoTracs reports on actual events. That eliminates, say, daily messages to simply confirm that a trailer is sitting in the same place. Of course, dispatch can determine location at any time by polling the GeoTracs unit.
Like Proximity Alert, GeoTracs can be configured to report arrivals, departures and "geo-fence" crossings, among other things. According to Briganti, a GeoTracs unit will cost about $450. Even with sensors to indicate the status of doors and loads the cost will be under $500.
"Quite honestly, with the two to two-and-a-half trailer-to-tractor ratio, there are yards with lots of trailers. A company can't watch 12,000 trailers. But they can watch the ones that aren't acting the way they want them to act," Briganti said.
Of course, Qualcomm pulled its TrailerTracs tracking product from the market last year, citing uncertainty about the future of the analog cellular network on which it relied. According to Qualcomm's Chris Wolfe, the decision was especially painful because truckload fleets Schneider and Swift were "already signed up." In September, Wolfe told HDT Qualcomm was honing a new tracking product, but he didn't expect it to be ready for trucking markets until 2004. Qualcomm confirmed the anticipated February launch of a tracking system for the construction industry but declined to predict when a trucking version of the system would debut.
That would seem to leave a major opening for Aether among other competitors in the trailer-tracking market place. But fleets are wary and many look beyond immediate product benefits to other factors, such as long-term performance. In that regard, Qualcomm remains formidable. It is an established company that generally runs profitably even in difficult times.
Many of its competitors are startups or not well established in the truckload market, and while Aether has been around longer than some, the economic downturn thwarted plans for early, sustained profitability.
Editor's Note: At press time, Aether announced that U.S. Xpress will replace Qualcomm's OmniTRACS system with MobilMax in all of the company's 5,500 trucks. The Chattanooga, Tenn., fleet tested Aether's system in more than 100 trucks before deciding to switch.
