System Brings Communication To Mobile Workers
The Age
Thursday July 27, 1995
Telstra has just released an advanced mobile radio-cum-cellular system that is increasingly finding favor with workers on the move. BILL TUCKEY reports.
BREAKER-breaker" and ``plain wrapper" were cult words of the 1970s, along with hit songs such as Convoy. They came out of CB radio, which spawned its own huge retail and publishing industry, along with a unique language. It helped truckers dodge police speed traps, saved lives in the outback, and was the godfather of today's courier systems.
Somehow, CB radio today seems much more romantic than a mobile phone. It was like a 1970s version of Internet. You could talk to total strangers about all kinds of things yet retain your anonymity.
First Ultra High-Frequency (UHF) then satellites changed all that, and now the modern pestilence of the mobile phone has banished CB radio to the nursing homes where crystal sets and walkie-talkies now live. Well, almost CB is still useful in the outback and small country towns.
Now Telstra has found an extension for the cellular phone system that is scheduled to be phased out in favor of digital around 2000 although there is growing pressure to reverse this intention. Telstra has invested heavily in a new mobile radio-cum-cellular system it calls Fleetcoms even to the point of trademarking the name.
Telstra describes it as ``one of Australia's most advanced systems of radio communications for companies with a mobile workforce". It does make CB look a little geriatric when you realise it offers voice, data and telemetry transmissions.
It's a mobile radio system able to guarantee that a channel is available for every transmission automatically. It is based on networks of base transmitting and receiving stations controlled by a central computer, with the system automatically transferring the channel as you pass into a new zone. It also has the ability to be networked into the cellular phone system.
Telstra allows its clients to specify the access and coverage areas they want, from a single site to city-wide plus country, as needed. So the user pays only for the operating area they want thus a Moorabbin-based company with a client service area towards Frankston and Dandenong could specify accordingly.
Telstra Fleetcoms charges a fixed monthly fee, then all calls within the network are free, including calls to a company's PABX extensions.
Another benefit is that because it is not a mobile phone system, it doesn't demand specific equipment. Because it operates on the globally-preferred MPT1327 ``open" system, you can use any brand of hand-held microphone, cordless hand-held, or master control unit.
Companies supplying MPT1327 equipment in Australia include Kyodo, GME, King, Kenwood, Nokia, Motorola, Tait, Stanilate and Philips.
Existing UHF and VHF radio can be re-programmed to access the Fleetcoms service, providing it is within the ``footprint" of the transmitting/receiving stations.
Fleetcoms users can do conference calls on the net, send data between computers, put up messages on a screen on a mobile unit in a vehicle, and allow individuals to talk to each other in privacy. It provides priority calling and emergency ``queue-jumping" access, as well as call diversion.
Data modems mean you can plug in a laptop computer to the mobile to send back to base, and with a printer produce hard copy of material sent down the line from head office. Real-time data can be downloaded to a centralised processer at baud rates of 1200 or 2400.
In Victoria, the system is being used by the police, EPA, Sheriff's Office, a number of hospitals and several Government departments. One big national convert is Radio Rentals, which runs about 120 vehicles across the country from its Sydney head office. The national service manager of parent company Thorn EMI, Tim Mullaly, says the company's reps had been using cellular mobiles and pagers, but these were proving expensive to run.
``Previously, our two-way radio system was a private one that allowed only one department to talk to one driver at a time. (Now) we can have multiple conversations on multiple channels and all are private. There is no queueing and our control panel can talk to more than one vehicle at once," he says. The company's drivers also have access to the cellular phone system so they can use Fleetcoms to ring customers direct.
``Rubber-ducky, that's a big 10-4 . . ."
© 1995 The Age