GPS Tracking ROI

 Ever been the victim of one of those clever school exercises where the teacher hands out a list of numbered instructions, the first one being “Read everything before doing anything”?  Of course most of the class doesn’t, performs all sorts of silly tasks that the list calls for, and then find that the last instruction said, “Ignore all the previous instructions and sit quietly in your seat”.

When I posted yesterday regarding the Mobio Networks Cheap Gas Widget, I woulda, coulda, shoulda look through more of their web site, becuase I made the erroneous assumption that the widget was not GPS-driven by choice.  I find it is not GPS-driven by several reasons, none of them reluctance to use the technology … so my apologies to anyone at Mobio who felt slanged.

The first reason just chaps my hide … I’ll be writing more on this subject, for sure.  The consumer pays for a phone with GPS capability, pays the carrier a substantial charge to sue that capability, we all pay taxes to make the GPS system free for use … and then the carriers hold the customer’s own data up for ransom?  Interesting.  What holiday is it this weekend?  Our veterans fought for what?

The second reason I also found interesting … and proof that it pays not to be a one-trick pony … GPS is not always the best answer for location based solutions.  Read Mobio Networks FAQS answer on why they don’t use GPS for the Cheap Gas Widget (at least for now) here and you may learn something … I sure did.

Ya’ll have a great Memorial Day weekend and don’t worry, Mr. GPS never sleeps, there will be plenty in the “new posts” column when you get back to the office next week.

Just a quick little post to remind folks that this Internet thing we frequent here is a community much more than it is a bunch of individuals.  From time to time I am able to string a few coherent words together, occasionally they make sense and from time to time I even get it right.  Most of my knowledge and ideas sprig from resources on the ‘Net.  And there’s no bigger repository of fact in one place when it comes to consumer level GPS and the communications arts than:

http://gpsinformation.net/

This site is a labor of love by Jack Yeazel  N4TEB, Joe Mehaffey  W2JO and Dale DePriest

There are links to virtually everything you could ever want to know about personal GPS and a whole, whole lot more. DO NOT go there if you have any appointments coming up soon or you have promised to clean out the garage, because you will spend time there.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the call signs I included after Jack and Joe’s names, these are there Amateur Radio call signs.  Amateur Ham) radio is probably endangered in some ways by the Internet, I know more than few Hams who now spend all their time on line rather than on air … but it’s a great hobby and a very worthwhile resource in emergencies, and I take my hat off to Hams everywhere.

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming

OK, everyone who is happy with the price they have been paying for gas lately,raise your hand.  Hmm, not too many hands going up.  Well this morning I came across a really neat “widget” for your mobile phone which will help.  It’s from a company called Mobio Networks and they do some very nice things.   They have a database of gas stations, updated semi-regularly and they can give you the list, right on your phone, by text or map, when it’s time to fill up.

You need to check all the details of the pricing with them but it looks cheap to me … you should be able to save way more than the monthly cost just by pre-planning your stops at the cheapest stations that are already on your route (don’t be one of those dim bulbs who drives 10 miles across town to save 3 cents a gallon, okay? If you do the math on that, you lose).

But this is a site about return on investment from using GPS, isn’t it?  I haven’t mentioned GPS yet.  Funny thing is, neither does Mobio *sigh*.

This software will tell you where to get the cheapest gas and even draw you a map to find it … but you have to know where you are to begin with.  I don’t know about you, but I generally know where I am in my home city and on local trips, and I pretty much know where the cheap gas stations are there, also.  Where I need help is when I am in Punkin Center, Colorado and the closest gas station at any price is 96 miles away … that’s when I need help finding a gas station … and of what earthly use is this tool if I don’t know where I am?

Here’s an innovative, forward-looking company making a living by adding value to today’s and tomorrow’s feature-laden mobile phones … most of which already come with GPS … and according to Mobio’s own instructions for the widget, you have to tell it where you are … then it will go to work to find you fueling options.

I may be missing something here, it may just be poor tech writing in the user’s manual or lousy copyrighting on their web site … so anyone from Mobi, feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to post a retraction/correction, but based on the public information the company sees fit to put out to the world, this is a tool that really, really, really misses the boat. 

In today’s world, though, I give it a conditional recommend, because you’ll get an ROI even without GPS.

You know, if a big mover and shaker like General Mills or General Electric or General Foods or General Dynamics (are they still in business?) posted 110% growth rate in a general business segment, such as the automotive field, I do believe you’d be seeing a little news flash on the Evening News … even Katie Couric could figure that one out (that’s _N_ews flash, Katie, not _T_high_ flash ;-)). But when it comes to business I still don’t see GPS getting the respect that it deserves.  Only a few years ago this was just an “interesting” techno-geek market segment, but wow, look at it now!  Here’s highlights of some of the 1Q 2007 industry profit results courtesy of GPS World, which really should be on your reading list.

Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN):

• Total revenue ($492 million) is up 53 percent from $322 million in the first quarter of 2006.
• Automotive/mobile segment revenue increased 110 percent to $317 million.
• North America revenue was $323 million compared to $202 million, up 60 percent.
• Europe revenue was $148 million compared to $102 million, up 45 percent
• Asia revenue was $21 million compared to $18 million, up 17 percent.

Trimble (Nasdaq: TRMB):

• Revenue growth of 27 percent.Revenue for the first quarter of 2007 was $285.7 million, up approximately 27 percent from revenue of $225.9 million in the first quarter of 2006.

SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRF): (often featured here at ROI Tracking)

• Revenue growth 28 percent growth from the first quarter of 2006. Net revenue was $67.3 million, compared to $52.7 million.

NovAtel, Inc. (NASDAQ:NGPS):

•  Revenue growth of 46 percent.

Looks like there is an ROI (Return On Investment) in equity investment as well as fleet management savings with GPS.  I like it.

By REBECCA PANOFF
rebecca.panoff@scripps.com
May 23, 2007

FORT PIERCE — Two days after a defendant on the county’s satellite tracking system pre-trial program was arrested in Palm Beach County on charges of exposing himself, St. Lucie County commissioners terminated their contract with the company that provides the service.

The termination comes after an audit into Sentencing Alternatives, which was paid $18 a day per participant in the GPS program, found many problems with how the company was managing cases. According to the preliminary audit by consultant Jeffrey Kilpatrick, problems included a defendant who took off his GPS bracelet and ran away but the violation wasn’t reported to the court until 10 days later, a defendant who tested positive for cocaine, broke curfew rules and wasn’t taken off the program and a defendant who offered an officer $5,000 to overlook curfew rules and the bribe was never reported…. read the rest of the article about the failure of the prisoner management contract here:

Rebecca Panoff wrote a pretty well researched article here about the failure of an initiative Saint Lucie County, Florida has been trying.  The county was attempting to save dollars for the taxpayer by hiring a commercial firm, known as Sentencing Alternatives, to manage offenders on an “out patient” basis for a flat daily rate.  Part of the program included using GPS Tracking bracelets to keep track of where the subjects were.  The company, according to the published report, did not execute the terms of their contract properly.  A number of grievous errors were reported including neglecting to report missing prisoners for days at a time and failing to report bribes.  These are gross failures to perform and the county did the right thing by refusing to do business with a company who doesn’t seem capable of performing up to standards.

Rebecca did the legwork and the writing, I’m sure one or more of her editors proofread and possibly “massaged” the story to get it into final form, and ten it went to the headline writer.  Why isn’t the story slugged with words that indicate the actual situation.  A county vendor failed and the county took action.

The contract in question is only a “GPS” contract in the sense that the vendor was allowed to use the technology.  The GPS didn’t fail, in fact nothing in the story indicates that problems with GPS itself had anything to do with the issues.  If I leased a Chevrolet and put a contract officer in the patrol car, and he filed to do his duty, I’d cancel the Chevrolet contract?  Nothing was wrong with the car, the fault was in how it was being used.

You’ve read here before and I don’t doubt you will again … GPS is a tool.  Law enforcement is both a science and a bit of an art.  Strapping a 9mm Glock on a person’s hip does not make him or her a law enforcement officer.  Handing them GPS bracelets and letting them fumble about with them does not make them offender managers either. 

If you are thinking of using GPS as part of your incarceration program, great, I think you should.  But remember that GPS is still just a tool, it can not make up for bad management and neglect … and as a personal favor to me, don’t blame the tool for the lousy work the carpenter did, ok?

The US Congress is saving the taxpayer’s money … or are they?

House lawmakers have denied an $81 million Defense Department request for the development of handheld satellite navigation receivers capable of receiving Iridium and Global Positioning System signals, saying the concept is not sufficiently proven to warrant funding.
DOD requested $71 million for the effort in the Air Force research and development budget for fiscal year 2008. Defense officials requested an additional $10 million in the U.S. Special Operations Command budget.  Full article on Congressional GPS shortsightedness penny pinching here:

Just a few weeks ago I highlighted the great idea of using additional signals from other available systems to enhance GPS.  There are some tremendous advantages here:

• Resistance to intentional jamming by terrorists or act of war
• Resistance to solar flares and other atmospheric/electromagnetic disturbances
• Significant increase in accuracy and dependability

More than anything I welcomed this initiative because we have already made the investment in thousands and thousands of other signal sources.  It’s just plain stupid to ignore the extra aids to GPS that are already out there “for the taking”.

Now should a big company like Boeing be the ones to pursue the research?  Well, who else?  Head in the cloud “not for profit” organization like MITRE and Aerospace … those guys can’t conceive anything that doesn’t costs billions before it even turns a wheel and they have no concept of profit.  Boeing takes raw metal and fashions the world’s most successful airplanes, satellites. etc., so I think right there is a vote in favor of moving forward.

Anyway, as the old saying goes, “if the opposite of “pro” is “Con”, then is the opposite of “Progress” really “Congress”?  It sure looks like it in this case.  Congressmen, you blew it here.

My good friends over at Gizmodo featured this device today under the heading of “Screwing over young drivers everywhere“. Maybe that’s their view … we’re all entitled to a couple opinions or two, but frankly I like this little beast.  It’s business-card size, can use an external GPS antenna (the bane of most of these simplistic, self-install trackers) and unlike the typical offering make use of both the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) of the phone carrier’s system, or the text (SMS-Short Message Service) network.  This greatly enhances the coverage, because, especially in the US, GPRS coverage is not nearly what the cell carriers would want you to think it is, but you can send a text from a lot of the USA.

The reason Gizmodo sounded so negative … coming out in favor of continuing our “do nothing” plan to end the single largest cause of teen deaths … unsafe teen driving … is that one of the features you’ll see on this unit is a microphone connection.  The owner of the device can place a call to the tracker’s SIM (Subscriber Information Module) card and cause it to silently turn on audio monitoring inside the vehicle (if the optional microphone is attached).  This may be overkill for some parents …. but to each his/her own.  It’s an option, not a requirement, and there are times it could be darn useful … so use as desired.

Interesting though that the young guys/gals at Gizmodo (and some other blogs who featured this device) seem to think it’s something new.  Almost every GM car and truck sold in the past 5 years comes equipped with OnStar.  Owners who don’t chose to use the features of OnStar can opt not to pay a monthly fee … but the hardware, GPS tracking And Voice Monitoring capability stay with the car for life.  (OnStar can be removed/disabled, but there’s a whole separate Internet sub-culture on that, OnStar is integrated into other vehicle systems and can’t always just simply be unplugged.)  The OnStar control center can “listen in” on any powered OnStar device, 24/7, anywhere.  So is this a GPS tracking issue, a cell phone issue, or merely an illustration that the super-liner USS Privacy has already ripped its side open on the iceberg?