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The technology
Page 53
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Arm yourself with a little knowledge about how telematics work, and you'll be in a better position to work out which package offers the best value for your requirements.
Most UK telematics systems use the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS).This is a dedicated bandwidth for data that piggybacks on the GSM communications networks you use for your mobile phone. The advantage with telematics is that the connection with the vehicle is always live, and you pay for data sent rather than calls made.You can also use the sarne network to send SMS text messages to the driver.
If you are travelling into mainland Europe, things get more complicated, although there are now pan-European GPRS roaming packages.The truck manufacturers, for example, offer pan-European flat-rate deals on data downloads.
Many systems use the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite network put into orbit by the US military.The 24 satellites are free to use, and give global coverage.The vehicle telematics black box has a GPS transceiver which the vehicle uses to work out its position—the latitude and longitude received from the satellites are translated into a map reference. There are other satellite networks such as Eutelsat, Globalstar and lnmarsat, while companies such as Spacechecker rent space on satellites to provide location information.