Category: Satellite Tracking

When was the last time you watched a horror movie? (If you are like myself, probably a long time ago because I value my sleep!)

A cliche in these movies is not being able to call for help. Over the years, many movies had scenes where characters had no service and were not able to use their cellphones.

How many times has a dropped signal caused you inconvenience?

It might not always be life-and-death but imagine the frustration if an important phone call drops. Or if a TV stream goes offline, as mine did while watching a close 4th quarter in the NBA playoffs.

Iridium GPS Tracker

The default way to track vehicles is to use cell coverage. However, some businesses travel to areas with weak or no coverage. How can businesses still get consistent data and ensure worker safety?

Enter satellite vehicle tracking. For areas where cell coverage is not possible, iridium GPS trackers (satellite tracking) fills these gaps by providing data without losing connection.

GoFleet uses the IRIDIUM satellite network for this need. This network is added to a traditional cellular based tracking system through a modem.

Consider the following cases.

Remote Operations

Businesses may operate in areas without cell coverage. Consider the following coverage map from OpenSignal and notice the dead zones.

Cellular tracking does not work in these zones. This leaves managers thinking. Where are the drivers? How are they driving?

The only way to answer these questions is to use satellite tracking.

Oil Rigs

One of GoFleet’s partners is an oil company that operates oil rigs in the middle of the ocean. And yes, just like the movie clips, there are no cellular signals in the middle of the ocean.

These oil rigs are expensive and are valuable assets. In the event of failure, the business needs to send helicopters and replacement parts to repair the rig. This costs thousands and thousands of dollars. How can costly repairs be prevented?

Many cellular-based tracking devices offer diagnostics tools. These tools allow maintenance managers to track & schedule service dates, as well as receive fault codes.

The Iridium GPS Tracker allowed the business protect their oil rigs by receiving these same reports over a satellite network.

Emergencies

Imagine this scene. A driver is going through a remote area. While driving, the weather worsens. The driver is suddenly going through a blizzard and becomes stuck. When they pull out their phone to call for help, the phone says “No Service”.

This problem, unfortunately, happens every year. Countless drivers get stranded in storms and cannot call for help. Drivers can also get stranded in other industries involving remote work, such as oil/gas and forestry companies. How can these drivers get help?

Iridium GPS trackers are equipped with a man-down system. When drivers are not able to get cellphone signal, they can send an emergency message through satellite. This message is relayed back to the office. The driver is then notified when the message has been received.

Minimizing Cost

Is satellite tracking costly? Compared to cell phone coverage, yes, satellite tracking is more costly. These costs, however, could be minimized with a failover system. Failover systems reduce cost by only using satellite when necessary.

For example, the Iridium GPS Tracker combines satellite tracking with cell coverage. This system normally uses cell coverage and only switches over to satellite when the signal is lost. The system then uploads data captured with satellite when cell coverage returns.

This reduces the amount of satellite usage, and in turn, reduces the cost of the system.

Does your business operate in remote areas?
Read more about Iridium GPS Tracking. 

Our telematics devices are responsible for tracking vehicles and assets and managing data for fleet managers within your company. All the information recorded can be easily accessed and downloaded for further decision making and strategic use. Our devices are capable of pulling the necessary information when they have enough power and strong network coverage to record data regardless of where your assets are located such as downtown in the city or in more remote areas.

Sharing the responsibility of managing and tracking your fleet results in you wanting to know where your vehicles are at all times. However, there might be a few companies who seek for the same capabilities but operate in areas with minimal network coverage. In order to gain tracking information, we utilize this opportunity and provide an add-on solution by integrating both our Go Rugged and GO device, with the communication reliability of the Iridium Network. Although the device is still capable of recording and storing information when operating in an area with minimal/no network coverage, the Iridium satellite is capable of providing the data in real-time.

GoFleet’s Integration with Iridium

The Iridium Satellite solution is a third party system that integrates with our Go Rugged and GO devices. It’s an external modem that connects to the unit and provides a robust failover system that allows for assets to continue to record positional updates while operating in remote areas out of cellular coverage. The devices are preconfigured to efficiently continue logging all GPS data and save it to its internal memory so, when it does gain cellular coverage, the data can be automatically uploaded to the database to provide a full breadcrumb trail of the trips performed while the vehicle was out of cellular range.

Benefits of the Iridium Satellite Tracking Solution

There are significant benefits to having the add-on Iridium Satellite Tracking system:

• Coverage Anywhere – Regardless of whether your assets are located in or out of cellular coverage, you’ll still be able to receive real-time updates on your asset whereabouts.
• Man-Down Functionality – GoFleet has also integrated a “Panic” feature with the Iridium add-on. When triggered, the satellite sends a top-priority message over the Iridium network to our software solution. The device on the driver’s end will also start to beep indicating that the message has been sent. The solution then sends a reply back to the vehicle and the device stops beeping, letting the driver know that the database has received the message.
• Cost Efficient Data – The Iridium solution is a failover system, meaning that the device will only send data over the Iridium network when the GO cannot send data through the cellular network. The add-on is strategically designed to only send certain data over the Iridium network in order to maintain manageable costs but still receive reliable data updates from assets.

For more information on the important features of GPS fleet tracking, and how it can help your business save thousands of dollars, contact one of our highly trained fleet consultants.

 

source: http://www.geotab.com/blog/benefits-of-iridium-satellite-tracking/