The end of 3G might have caused a few headaches for transport operators around Australia – but it actually spells great news for the industry, according to Teletrac Navman’s Chief Product Officer Andrew Rossington.
Australia’s 3G networks were officially turned off on October 28, paving the way for the 4G and 5G takeover.
Although the shutdown was delayed to allow extra time for everyone to make the switch, Rossington said some transport operators were still caught off guard when their devices suddenly stopped working.
“The shutdown was delayed twice – it was originally meant to be in June, then August – and finally it happened at the end of October,” Rossington said.
“But the delays didn’t make a difference to the people who hadn’t seen the news or our communications, or just hadn’t upgraded yet, and those were the people who switched on after the shutdown and went ‘Hmm, something’s not happening here.’
“You’ve got to remember that 3G had been around for 15 plus years, so there were a lot of devices out there that people had almost forgotten about.”
As well as personal mobile devices that suddenly stopped working, many transport businesses who hadn’t managed to move to the newer networks in time were left without functioning telematics systems.
This would have led to a loss of real-time tracking, alerts, and fleet visibility, and a return to manual timesheets and invoicing, costing them time and money.
“We had quite a few phone calls in the first couple of weeks after the shutdown from people saying they needed to upgrade their devices!” Rossington added.
“We probably shipped out many thousands of long-life, battery-based tracking devices to people that had missed the boat and needed to track their assets and trailers.”
Teething issues aside, Rossington explained that 4G and 5G represent an exciting new age in connectivity.
“They give you a higher bandwidth and what’s called lower latency, so it’s much quicker to connect and it’s much quicker to send and receive data, as well as sending more data at the same time,” he said.
“At Teletrac Navman, we’re now able to do services remotely that we weren’t able to do very effectively with 3G.”
Rossington said one of the biggest growth areas in the past few years has been video telematics, and this will continue to grow as connectivity improves.
“Getting access to that in the vehicles, for all of its safety outcomes and driver safety and compliance, that’s been a real push for a lot of companies,” he said.
“We expect roughly two in three customers who don’t already have video telematics to take it up in 2025.”
Another major growth area is low-cost asset trackers.
“People are realising that to track high-value assets like trailing equipment they might put in containers for shipping, or refridge units, through to lower-value assets like things on pallets for example, the cost is coming way down.
“We’re getting a lot of customers saying they didn’t realise it’s so much more affordable than it was 10 years ago or whenever they last looked into it.”
Rossington pointed out that you can now have more services in a single product, which saves you money, space and time – and the move to 4G and 5G presents a great opportunity to consolidate your devices.
“One of the video telematics units we have is a camera unit for safety, but it also gives you what we call core telematics, or location services, so it will replace some of the functions of what was typically a black box.
“There are use cases for people who can go and use a single box now, including video and telematics, rather than having multiple.
“A lot of people have taken the opportunity to consolidate their devices, but also a lot of people have taken the opportunity to expand their services.”
He said transport operators will be doing themselves a favour by seeing the switch as a good thing and embracing the improved connectivity and telematics options now available to them.
“We know in transport that safety outcomes are huge, compliance outcomes are huge.
“I think giving transport operators the ability to do more on that front, to be more efficient with their business at less cost, has got to be a good outcome.
“People might have to change their equipment, but as I said there’s the opportunity to consolidate services, and there’s a much more widely available type of product that can be self-installed now. The transition is simpler.”
He added that without technology, transport operators quickly become uncompetitive.
“There is an element of technology you need in the transport world today to actually run your business,” he said.
“If you choose not to embrace some of the solutions and technology that’s there for compliance, you’re excluding yourself from certain parts of the market.
“If you think about the mass management programs in in Australia and some of the benefits that heavy access programs give you, you can’t do that without technology.
“No technology equals no ability to compete, and I don’t think that’s where anyone can afford to be in this market.”
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