Data concerto: Wireless communication technologies

Like musicians entering a concert hall with their instruments in hand, wireless communication technologies have been steadily converging and adding their various digital data streams to the growing chorus of information that now plays 24/7 behind the businesses on center stage. Satellite communications, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, RFID, smart sensors, Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) and more are forming ad-hoc, all-machine ensembles that communicate wirelessly together without ceasing. Computers are their equally tireless conductors, turning what might be a senseless "din" of data into usable information that is music to fleet managers' ears.

"Today we are working with multiple service providers, multiple smart devices and multiple applications," says Chris Jones, in charge of EVP solutions and services for Descartes, a global provider of logistics messaging services. "We built a platform that takes wireless messages from numerous carriers — Sprint, AT&T, Verizon; we are network agnostic — and then sends them to the computer systems that can do something with them, like route optimization or asset tracking.

"We are talking about a huge number of variables and a very high degree of complexity," Jones adds. "Our goal is to try to mask that complexity as far as possible for our customers to bring them just what they each need, as they need it."

"There is a whole spectrum of mobile devices out there today to meet a whole spectrum of needs," notes Jim Hayes, senior vertical industry manager for Sprint's industry business solutions team. "Part of the challenge is figuring out who needs what information when and where."

"We work very hard to try to match the right group of technologies to each customer's needs," says David Bushee, vp for Penske Logistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Penske Truck Leasing. "For instance, we have a technology team that meets with customers to determine what the right technology mix is to meet their needs — at the lowest cost."

WHAT FLEETS NEED

According to Chris Jones, fleet technology needs can increasingly be sorted into three main groups: logistics management, including capabilities such as dispatch, turn-by-turn navigation, asset tracking, traffic information and routing; transaction-specific, at-the-stop capabilities such as signature capture, scanning bar codes, inventory management and printing invoices; and regulatory compliance such as driver hours-of-service logs, fuel tax reporting, driver performance monitoring or permitting.

"In the past, fleets could get some of the information they needed in each of those three categories from three different providers. There was no easy way to get it all in one spot," he notes. "That single-source view is something fleets want now, and the market is moving quickly in that direction.

"A lot of what is driving this is the convergence of the consumer and commercial mobile communications markets," Jones adds. "Handhelds used to be very expensive, for instance. Now the prices have come down and the features and functionality have gone way up. That is driving a lot of the desire to pull this all together.

"There are two basic types of technology customers," he says, "those who want the sophistication that comes with lots of technology in the vehicles in the field, and those who also want real-time mobile communications but can't afford to pay a lot for it. We have one customer who has 6,000 drivers and wants to give them all mobile communications technology. Lower-cost, Windows-enabled phones or other handheld devices can allow them to save money and still do a much better job managing their fleet, even with basic, low-cost capabilities. Both of these customer bases will continue to take off."

ABI Research reports the GPS-enabled mobile phone market is indeed taking off, albeit at a slightly slower pace in 2009. A new market study by ABI predicts that sales of GPS-enabled phones will climb to 240 million units in 2009, an increase of 6.4% over 2008. By 2014, they expect nine out of ten smart phones will include GPS capability. "Falling component prices and increased consumer awareness of handset location capabilities will keep demand for GPS-enabled phones healthy, in spite of the slumping global economic picture," senior ABI analyst George Perros notes in a recent release. "Other factors that will continue the trend toward inclusion of GPS functionality in handsets include the spread of open source operating systems…and the continuing emergence of navigation and map-based applications for handsets.

"As the quality of positioning technology in handsets improves and the cost of including it declines, GPS location technology will approach the status of a standard device feature," he adds. "We are approaching the point where personal navigation, social spatial knowledge, and location-specific contextual information will be assumed handset capabilities."

MATTER OF ACCEPTANCE

"A lot of what is happening in the market is just a matter of acceptance," says Sprint's Jim Hayes. "The handheld tools have been out there for some time and the technology has matured. People are now learning to use them. As the cellular network builds out, speeds improve and the costs decline, people are asking themselves, ‘Do I really need satellite? Could I manage with a smart phone or a Windows-enabled mobile device? Would an embedded notebook computer or PC do what we need to do?’

"The more cellular users there are, the faster the technology advances," Hayes adds. "Innovation comes from everywhere. In February, we introduced an application called NextMail Locator for select Nextel Direct Connect phones. With NextMail, customers can now push-to-send their location, date, time and voice observations to a dispatcher, call center or another worker just by pushing the Direct Connect button and leaving a message.

"For instance, a driver might call and say, ‘I am at the delivery location in front of the door I was told to go to, but the door is blocked by a dumpster.’ That message is date, time and GPS-location stamped and saved as voice mail," Hayes notes. "With the camera function on the phone, the driver can include a picture of the dumpster too. The function is very easy to use and it gets fleets and their customers out of the he-says, she-says mode."

While cellular technology is itself growing and evolving, cellular networks are also being caught up in the general move to link various wireless technologies together to create new solutions and consolidate information. TeleNav Inc., for example, recently announced a new partnership with Sprint and Turnpike Global Technologies to create a system that combines onboard vehicle diagnostics and IFTA fuel-tax filing with GPS-enabled navigation, asset tracking, wireless forms and wireless timecards.

Dubbed the TeleNav Vehicle Manager, the new system uses Turnpike's electronic onboard recorder (EOBR) paired via Bluetooth technology with a GPS-enabled wireless phone to get the job done. "The transportation industry is very adept at deploying technology to gain efficiencies," notes Keith Halasy, senior marketing manager of business-to-business products for TeleNav. "In this case, Sprint was the technology matchmaker; they put us together with Turnpike to create this new solution."