Trucking Technology Alert - Oct. 16
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Both the online report and e-mail are sponsored by @Track Communications, a supplier of wireless communications and dispatch services.
Today's Technology Headlines:
- Wireless Users Cite Emerging Worries
- Accord Seen With FCC on Licenses of NextWave
- Wireless World Tries to Improve the Radio
- LEMA May Bring Communication Standard
Wireless Users Cite Emerging Worries
Following the recent terrorist attacks on the United States, there has been a noticeable increase in the level of suspicion with which companies and individuals are treating systems that disseminate data.The reason for this suspicion is that in a data -- rich environment there are insufficient guarantees that information will in fact be used for positive ends. A similar shift in perception is also emerging with regard to wireless systems, whether they are cargo tracking systems or cell phones. Locator technology, in particular, which uses radio frequencies and satellite signals to accurately locate and track electronic tags attached to certain items, is currently being reexamined to determine its potential for abuse, in particular by the government.
Accord Seen With FCC on Licenses of NextWave
According to sources involved in the negotiations, federal officials and a number of the biggest wireless communications companies in the United States may soon announce a settlement in the dispute over who owns more than 200 valuable licenses to provide wireless service.Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Hawthorne, N.Y.-based NextWave Communications, a bankrupt wireless company that originally owned the licenses, would pay what it owed for the licenses before it went bankrupt, as well as interest on that amount and related taxes.
In separate news, VoiceStream Wireless and Cingular Wireless recently announced that they would share frequencies in Nevada, New York and California. New York Times (10/16/01) P. C2; Romero, Simon; Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Wireless World Tries to Improve the Radio
The greatest challenge currently facing the wireless world is to create a communications device that will be able to pick up, display, and send all the various types of wireless data surging through the airwaves-and still fit in a person's pocket.According to Bob Miller, head of communications research at AT&T Labs, up until recently, a phone has been a phone, a radio has been a radio, and a television has been a television. In the future, Miller says, a single device will have to be taught how to choose which of the many different radio technologies to make use of.
This so-called software-defined radio device would scan the radio spectrum for signals, then turn itself into a videophone, a radio, a telephone, or an email portal depending on what it picked up. When the user wanted to communicate with someone, the device would assess the capabilities of the local wireless system, as well as the kind of data being sent, and fashion the outgoing transmission accordingly.
Some companies are even thinking about creating wireless virtual reality, in which the radio spectrum would carry not only video, text, and voice, but also a sense of being in a different location. U.S. News & World Report (10/15/01) Vol. 131, No. 15, P. 36; Fischer, Joannie
LEMA May Bring Communication Standard
Internet-based Logistics.com hopes its Logistics Event Management Architecture (LEMA) technology will help bring a uniform communication standard to the industry for handling transactions involving shippers, carriers, forwarders, and third-party logistics providers.LEMA uses transportation XML to transmit shipping information via the Web. The acceptance of a single communications standards by industry players could provide a number of important benefits, including decreasing expenditures, encouraging more cooperation between firms, and reducing cargo errors. The absence of such a standard requires shippers and carriers to invest more funds to integrate their systems.
According to Logistics.com CEO John Lanigan, his company is offering LEMA without charge to encourage adoption of the communications system as an industry standard. In addition, Logistics.com plans to encourage many industry related associations, such as the American Trucking Associations, to implement its system. Traffic World (10/15/01) Vol. 42, No. 265, P. 18; Boyce, Clayton
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