It is no secret that the cellular carriers have been on the lookout for new sources of revenue. Many have been working with Telematics providers since the late 1990’s, but with our low ARPU, they never really took the industry seriously. Initiatives such as the Sprint / M2M DataSmart and AT&T / Jasper Wireless partnerships are showing that the carriers are now getting serious about this space in order to grow their revenues. They will be big proponents of the benefits of Telematics to their huge customer base, which will significantly increase adoption.

Commitment by customers:

As businesses recover from the Great Recession, they will realize that they can no longer ignore the built in inefficiencies within their operations. They will want to operate leaner and will utilize Telematics applications to streamline their processes and reduce unnecessary expenses.

Commitment by device manufacturers:

Due to the wide range of applications, device manufacturers now see the opportunity to sell hundreds of thousands of devices, which will help drive the economies of scale needed to push device costs down. This will help increase adoption since potential end users will no longer view the implementation costs as being as prohibitive as they were in the past.

Commitment by application providers:

Many new application providers are emerging with unique products that will grow the market. This includes Telematics applications designed to help insurance carriers implement pay-per-use policies. In addition, applications such as smart meter reading and remote asset monitoring will help drive growth due to the sheer number of machines throughout the world. The integration of new consumer applications such as Sync and mbrace by auto manufacturers will easily grow the market by millions of new devices. There are also many remote patient monitoring applications that will play a significant role in how healthcare services are delivered in the future.

Commitment by investors:

As we gain additional traction with the cellular carriers, customers, device manufacturers, and application providers, investors will see Telematics as a relatively low risk opportunity and will provide significant funding to our industry.
Now I believe that the market analyst projections that I and trumpeted over and over during the early 2000’s are now finally coming to fruition. This is because we finally have the commitment from the market drivers that will propel this industry forward.

About the author: 
Yukon Palmer is the founder and President of FieldLogix – the provider of a Green GPS Fleet Management solution designed to reduce fleet fuel consumption and improve productivity. His career in the Telematics industry began in 2000 at Teletrac while he was also earning his MBA at San Diego State University. Yukon was recently selected by the San Diego Daily Transcript as one of San Diego’s “Young Influentials”.

The Guidelines rely on two fundamental principles: user notice and consent.
 
First, LBS providers must ensure that users receive meaningful notice about how location information will be used, disclosed and protected so that users can make informed decisions whether or not to use the LBS.
 
Second, LBS providers must ensure that users consent to the use or disclosure of location information, and LBS providers bear the burden of demonstrating such consent.
 
Jay Malin: The most visible issue currently is with whom the data is shared? Location—just beyond where you are now—includes, where you are at night (live), where you are during the day (work), where you shop/eat/visit the gym (gender, age, income), thereby enabling the application provider to build a profile of you that exceeds your expectations. For the most part, this is already being done today by existing data vendors who acquire transaction data.
 
TheWhereBusiness: Research suggests consumers are concerned, but most services don’t tell them how or where they’ll be used. It has also been indicated that users may not think through the consequences of making their location data public. What steps do you think need to be taken to create more awareness about the consequences among the users?
 
David Diggs: There’s a responsibility incumbent upon all providers of LBS to educate consumers as to how the consumer’s location information is collected, stored and used.
 
At the same time, consumers must take the time to understand the information that’s available about LBS applications. It’s important consumers read those license agreements, because that’s where the specifics about the app can be found. Responsible LBS developers have spent the time to understand how their products/services can be misused by abusers, and go to great lengths to incorporate reasonable safeguards against such misuse.