Subject: [NEXTEL-1] NationLink tracks growth with GPS

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:50:32 -0500

NationLink tracks growth with GPS
Roy Moore
Nashville Business Journal
From the February 13, 2004 print edition

NationLink Wireless has formed a separate division to focus on selling
its GPS tracking system to businesses with numerous workers in the
field.

The new division, headed by Wayne Vowell, joins the cellular and
landline telephony businesses and should account for 25 percent to 30
percent of revenue over the next three to five years, says President
Andy Bailey.
"It has become a very explosive business for us and I see a lot of
activity in it," he says.

The technology behind the new division is used with a specially
developed Nextel cellphone or a vehicle locator system box. By regularly
capturing location information transmitted back over the cellular
network, companies can monitor their workers' location and get a report
on their day's work using a Web-based application.

"If you can shave off 15 minutes of drive time a day, that's massive
especially if you're a small operation," says Vowell, who dealt with
similar technology while in the cable television industry on the West
Coast.

Global positioning system technology has been used in business tracking
for years. However, most recognize passive tracking, such as the one UPS
uses to allow customers to track their packages, or real-time satellite
tracking utilized by trucking companies using the Qualcomm system.

Officials at NationLink, which is reselling the technology, say the cost
for transmitting information over a cellular network is less than 1
percent that of sending it over satellite.

"It's all about cost efficiency and getting a bigger bang for your
dollar," says Vowell.

Under Vowell, the new division will assume up to five account executives
from NationLink this year to sell the system. Initially focusing
locally, the company is eying the transportation, shipping and services
industries, such as HVAC and cable television companies. With a cost of
$28 per month for the cellphone service and $53 per month for the
vehicle locator system, NationLink expects to have 5,000 units in the
field by the end of this year.

One early user of the NationLink service has been Direct Insurance, the
Nashville-based insurance writer that went public last year.

GPS technology has experienced dramatic growth this decade tied to the
rise of automotive and asset tracking. These two segments were expected
to account for nearly half of the global GPS by the end of 2003, which
was gauged at roughly $13 billion, according to Allied Business
Intelligence Inc., an Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based technology market research
firm.
Overall GPS equipment revenue has grown from $8 billion in 2000 to an
expected $15 billion this year, ABI estimates.
"On the automotive platform, GPS has enabled a host of new telematics
applications, from tracking a teen's use of the family car to automatic
tax collection for interstate trucking companies," said Frank Viquez,
director of Automotive Electronics at ABI, in a report last fall.

[email-masked], 615-248-2222 ext. 117
http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2004/02/16/story5.html

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