3G Goes Away: Are Companies Ready?
AT&T ended 3G service this week...what are the implications for connected car, location information and fleet tracking?
Millions of passenger cars, as well as trucks and buses, lost emergency, convenience and navigation features this week as AT&T became the first telecommunications company to shut down its 3G network. Both T-Mobile and Verizon will sunset their 3G service later this year.
3G-connected vehicles will lose their automatic crash notification and other features. According to one account, more than 10 percent of public school buses could lose GPS signals and other communications.
For fleets, it means loss of vehicle connect and driving data for companies that did not upgrade telematics services. Many of these companies, because of the pandemic, delayed software and hardware upgrades.
The 3G shutdown will affect millions of vehicle models, from 2010 through 2019, that had built-in 3G connectivity, said Kenny Hawk, Mojio CEO.
“It’s a big problem. Any features that depended on that 3G wireless connection will no longer work including life-saving crash detection and eCall,” he said. “Some automakers are ripping and replacing the 3G embedded telematics control unit, antenna etc. and upgrading to 4G while others are leaving their customers with no solution and trying to shift the blame to the mobile operators. Our OEM customers including Audi and VW are providing our 4G upgrade solution free of charge to in warranty affected customers.”
Hawk said his company offers a 4G LTE upgrade that includes an OBDII (dongle) device, platform and analytics. “Our solution includes OEM grade crash detection, automatic crash notification, eCall, stolen vehicle locator, live vehicle trip tracking, driver scoring, speed alerts, disturbance alerts, low cost fuel finder and predictive maintenance/vehicle health alerts,” he said.
For fleet management systems, the 3G sunset has made some companies scramble to find a solution. Other companies have been upgrading existing systems to prepare for the sunsets.
“We’ve been in contact with every customer who still has 3G gear in their fleet. Every device has either been swapped already, has a swap device at the customer site waiting for professional installation, or has been shipped to the customer and waiting for them to self-install,” said Steve Wells, ClearPathGPS founder and chief revenue officer. “As of today, we think that only 1 to 2 percent of our base will be impacted and we should be able to address those customers fairly quickly. It’s still unclear to us if the impact will be all at once or over a period of time. Either way, we feel that we are in good shape mostly due to an aggressive outreach campaign that at one point even included handwritten notes from account managers.”
Such companies as Geotab offer a ProPlus Plan that includes a limited lifetime warranty that covers a fleet for future network shutdowns and provides replacements for failed devices.
Is Time Running Out For Sigfox?
Even though there are rumors of potential investors coming to its rescue, Labège, France-based Sigfox may run out of time as it was placed under a court’s protection from its creditors for six months.
According to published reports, Sigfox asked a Toulouse court to shorten this period to only three weeks. That period ends this week and leads to speculation whether Sigfox will have a new buyer or will just completely go out of business.
Sigfox, founded in 2010, has raised money from a number of top-tier companies, including Intel, NTT, Samsung, Salesforce, SK Telecom and many others.
IoT Now reported that possible suitors include LoRa company Semtech, network solutions vendor Actility and even Orange. Sigfox, a major IoT player, had its financial woes chronicled by Techcrunch and French Tech Journal.
One of the last company announcements came in December, when it partnered with Skyhook to improve the quality and performance of existing tracking services on the Sigfox’s global network. The companies, by integrating Skyhook’s positioning services with Sigfox’s Atlas Wi-Fi service, will allow customers to locate their assets in indoor environments.
Sigfox posted a net loss of nearly $102 million on revenues of more than $27 million, with $132.8 million in debt, in its annual financial statement.
Polte Partners With Druid Software
Druid Software has partnered Polte to add location technology for enterprise 4G/5G private networks. The partnership will package the location capability into Druid’s Location Management Function (LMF) on its core platform for industrial, healthcare and other markets, the company said.
The Druid Raemis core platform, which is 3GPP-compliant on a 4G/5G core network, can be deployed on edge hardware devices. For its part, Polte is producing the location component of the LMF for 5G as well as an Enhanced Serving Mobile Location Center (ESMLC) for 4G, the company said.
This integration equips Raemis with Polte’s C-LoC technology. The company says, with 5G precise positioning, Polte provides sub-meter level accuracy indoors within a private network. This extends to sub-3 meters’ accuracy outdoors, the company said.
Contact: Christina Wicker, Polte, (949) 527-0923, christina@polte.com, www.polte.com.
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👍 T‑Mobile and Deutsche Telekom Launch T‑IoT. “With millions of connected Mercedes-Benz vehicles in nearly every corner of the world today, and up to 20 million connected cars in our fleet by 2025, we need be able to rely on T-IoT,” said Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Management, Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
🙂 Proxi Is Making Digital Maps Cooler. “The Seattle-based startup is developing geospatial software aimed at taking on the likes of Google Maps and Yelp by enabling users to create personal navigation maps.”
🛩 Emesent Lands $32 Million To Drive Autonomous Drone Tech. A successful funding round has landed $32 million for drone mapping and data analytics startup Emesent.
✔ EMCORE Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire the L3Harris Space and Navigation Business. EMCORE buys L3Harris’ [LHX] Space and Navigation Business for $5 million in an all-cash transaction.
🚘 Audi Is Bringing 5G Connectivity to Its Vehicles in 2024. “Audi and Verizon say the plan is to bring 5G Ultra Wideband technology to the automaker’s vehicle lineup, starting with model year 2024.”
🙌 Snapchat Reveals New Tracking Feature To Keep College Students Safer. “As social media apps introduce features to protect students online, Snapchat is introducing a new feature to protect students from sexual assault.”
🤞 Volkswagen in Talks To Buy Huawei's Autonomous Driving Unit. “The founding of the smart car BU spurred much speculation over whether Huawei would develop its own cars, though the firm has repeatedly denied any manufacturing plans and said it instead wants to be the “Bosch of China”, or a components supplier for car brands.”
✌ GM Defense Working on $45 Billion Autonomous Tank for Us Armed Forces. “GM Defense, the military vehicle division of General Motors, is collaborating with General Dynamics Land Systems on its bid to win a contract to build the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) for the U.S. armed forces.”
😲 GM Seeks Us Approval To Deploy Self-driving Car Without a Steering Wheel. “Cruise announced the filing of its petition for approval on Friday, saying the car is "a zero-emission, shared, electric vehicle that has been purposefully designed from the ground up to operate without a human driver.”
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Location Industry Briefs
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U‑blox Partners With Xiaoan Technology, Gets Certification
Thalwil, Switzerland-based u-blox [UBXN] has partnered with Xiaoan Technology Co., Ltd. to develop the AT-MX intelligent control system for shared electric bicycles. AT-MX uses u-blox M10 GNSS technology for positioning of their fleet for improved compliance with “increasingly stringent Chinese policy requirements,” the company said.
In other company news, u-blox said its SARA-R510M8S-71B module has been certified on LG U+’s LTE-M network. The module is the first product based on UBX-R5, u‑blox’s own low power wide area (LPWA) chipset, to achieve Korean operator certification, the company said.
The SARA-R5 series, which is 5G-ready, applications include industrial automation, sensor applications, connected health, metering, asset and vehicle tracking and telematics. SARA-R510M8S integrates a u‑blox M8 GNSS receiver and a separate antenna interface.
Contact: Natacha Seitz, u-blox, 41 76 436 0788, natacha.seitz@u-blox.com, www.u‑blox.com.
MWC 2022 LBS & Telematics Mingle
The annual LBS & Telematics mingle at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will be Feb. 28 at the Alexandre Hotel Fira Congress hotel bar. The free, informal networking event, starting at 5:30 p.m., is for professionals across the Location-Based Services, IoT, Telematics & Smart Mobility industries. Sign up here.
Telit Rolls Out Two Modules For Telematics and Tracking Apps
Telit has announced two modules based on the Qualcomm 9207 LTE IoT modem, the LE910C1-WWX (Cat1) and LE910C4-WWX (Cat 4). The new modules, which are 3GPP Release 10 compliant, enable telematics and tracking applications, the company said.
Developers can use the LE910C1-WWX or LE910C4-WWX as pin-to-pin compatible replacements for their existing devices based on 2G, 3G and LTE, the company said. The LE910C1-WWX and LE910C4-WWX also support Voice over LTE (VoLTE), as well as 2G and 3G fallback and on-board GNSS positioning capability.
In other company news, Telit’s ME310G1 product family is integrated into Momentum IoT’s new GPS Telematics device which works without external power for more than six months after a single charge, the company said. Markets include garbage and storage bins, portable toilets, roll-off containers, message-boards and coolers.
Contact: Leslie Hart, Telit, (919) 415-1510, Leslie.Hart@Telit.com, www.Telit.com; Momentum IoT, https://momentumiot.com.
Lantronix Partners With Taoglas and Thales
Lantronix [LTRX] has partnered with Taoglas and Thales [HO] to deliver IoT connectivity solutions, particularly for industrial, security and transport markets. On display next week at Mobile World Congress at the Taoglas booth, the Lantronix G520 Series smart cellular IoT devices feature the Taoglas Guardian MA963 antenna and Thales MV31 Ultra High Speed 5G M.2 Modem Card.
In other company news, Lantronix has announced that its FOX3 Series telematics gateway is being used in the SATLOG Fleet Management System. The SATLOG has tracked more than 5.4 million stops and manages 600,000 events from fleet vehicles every month, the company said. The unit remotely captures vehicle movement, location, driver status and other vehicle-related data.
Contact: Kathryn Miller, Lantronix, (949) 453-7158, media@lantronix.com.
Veniam Partners With TomTom
Veniam has partnered with TomTom to integrate software and cloud services into the TomTom IndiGO. Veniam's new intelligent networking feature enables TomTom IndiGO customers and partners to split data flows and charge separately for each application, the company said. Instead of billing all data costs to the auto OEM or fleet provider, navigation services providers can now pay for map updates, ADAS companies can pay for sensor data, and infotainment providers can pay for their content transfers, the company said.
Contact: Veniam, www.veniam.com.
Nodle Partners With BLACKDOT
Nodle has partnered with BLACKDOT, a location-based social networking mobile application, to monetize their app. Nodle, a wireless network for IoT, uses Bluetooth and a citizen crowd of millions of smartphones. By running the Nodle SDK in their App, and with the permission of their users, the BLACKDOT community anonymously and securely generates Nodle Cash, the company said.
Nodle’s powerful IoT stack allows connecting and securing physical assets, tracking lost or valuable items, capturing sensor data, and authenticating security certificates. BLACKDOT also has the ability to save locations on an interactive map, route users to locations using Uber/Lyft/Google Maps and messaging capabilities.
Contact: Gregg Delman, for BLACKDOT, (415) 935-1804, gregg@gthreemedia.com.
Ultrack Systems Buys Company, Looks to Acquire More…
GPS tracking company Ultrack Systems [MJLB] has signed an MOU to purchase Power Moves Transport (PWTI), which transports automobiles throughout the United States. Ultrack said it has met with a consultant to explore acquiring target companies. The company said that their target companies “all operate within similar horizontal markets as Ultrack does.” The company also said its ELD certification in Canada is 78 percent completed.
Contact: Ultrack, info@ultrack.ca, www.ultrack.ca.
New RestoTracker Asset Tracking and Management System
RestoTracker.com has launched RestoTracker, an asset tracking and management system that allows companies to track high-value equipment, vehicles and employees. Other features include GPS tracking, a streamlined electronic logging process and customized reports.
Contact: RestoTracker, www.restotracker.com.
DMI Partners With Wirepas For Tracking Product
DMI has partnered with Wirepas to integrate Wirepas Massive mesh software into DMI’s digital twin platform, Precision Reality. This partnership delivers a precise positioning and real-time asset tracking product for Industry 4.0, the company said. A component for Precision Reality Track & Trace is the capability that provides for a full coverage tracking solution in high density and GPS-denied areas.
Contact: DMI, www.precisionreality.com.
Parkopedia Joins NDS Association
Parkopedia has joined the Navigation Data Standard (NDS) Association, the worldwide standard for map data in automotive ecosystems. The NDS Association provides a worldwide map standard for automotive-grade use, which can be widely used in the navigation industry and be globally adopted by leading suppliers of navigation maps, the company said.
In addition to data collection technology, Parkopedia creates indoor parking maps and the technology to enable map-based end-to-end navigation within parking facilities and indoor service locating without GPS. The company contends that the navigation experience for drivers currently ends at the entrance of any indoor or underground parking facility due to the lack of GPS.
Contact: Adam Calland, Parkopedia, 44(0)7838219129, adam.calland@parkopedia.com, business.parkopedia.com.
Rajant Offers Personnel and Asset Tracker
Rajant Corp. recently showed off its MeshTracer personnel and asset tracking product at the Egypt Petroleum Show in Cairo. MeshTracer works with the company’s BreadCrumbs, AeroScout tags or any Wi-Fi device that uses a static MAC address. MeshTracer uses Real-Time Location System (RTLS) technology to identify people and assets across in an industrial IoT site, the company said.
Contact: Rajant, Rajant.com.
People
Neology named Joe Averkamp as Senior Vice President, Business Development and Sales. Averkamp has previously worked in business development and tolling technology roles at Parsons and Xerox. He has held previous roles as an executive responsible for product and technology teams at Ford, Motorola, and Sprint-Nextel.
Nestwave has named Ciaran Connell to company’s board of directors in March. Connell ran DecaWave, the micro-location specialist and pioneer of UWB (Ultra-Wideband) technology acquired by Qorvo in 2020.
Elad Benjamin Rubin is joining Parknav as Interim Chief Operating Officer (COO). Elad was founder and CEO of Sirenum.
Jobs
Business Development Representative (BDR). TomTom.
Partner Sales Manager, Geo Enterprise, Google Cloud. Google.
GNSS Sales Manager (US). Septentrio.
Sr. Partner Marketing Manager Asia. Amazon Smart Vehicles.
Regional Application Marketing Manager - Automotive. u-blox.
Senior Product Manager. IntelliShift.
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