july 2010 - frotcom roadmap newsletter

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Roadmap monthly newsletter

Editorial

rotcom has expanded its operations to Brazil.

After a thorough analysis of the Brazilian vehicle

tracking market and of the legal and logistical

constraints, Frotcom International has officially

begun in July 2010 its operations in this country.

Operations will begin in the region delimited by Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia

and Goiania. Industrially, this is the most active area in Brazil. Later, Frotcom Brazil

will enlarge its activities to other regions.

Why are the Brazilian operations important to the Frotcom project?

Well, first of all, due to its huge market, Brazil represents on its own a big potential

for the installation of a quite significant volume of Frotcom tracking systems. Roads

are the primary carriers of freight and passenger traffic (Brazil's railway system has

been declining since 1945, when emphasis shifted to highway construction).

Frotcom is a competitive solution and with Frotcom Brazil’s marketing skills will for

sure conquer an important market share.

As important as the size of the market, is the presence of Frotcom in the Americas.

Frotcom International plans to expand to other countries in South America in 2011.

In 2012, North and Central America. A presence in Brazil will be quite important as a

reference for other countries in the region.

This is an important challenge to Frotcom, as a product, but also to Frotcom

International, in the sense that support to FCPs has now to be extended to a region

in a different time zone and eventually with somewhat different requirements.

Finally, since GSM in the Americas uses the 850MHz/1900MHz frequencies, the

quadriband characteristic of Frotcom devices, until now only used in the

900MHz/1800MHz frequencies, will be explored for the first time.

Valério Marques CEO - Frotcom International

A note from the editor – If you would like to have your own say in the next edition of this newsletter

please do not hesitate to get in touch at [email protected].

F

July 2010

In this issue

Frotcom arrives in Brazil

Redescovering the Americas

Case study

Vehicle tracking in Morocco

New features in Frotcom

Regions

This and much more…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction

mailto:[email protected]


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New Frotcom Certified Partner

Frotcom Brazil Rediscovering the Americas

A GPS receiver uses the signals of at

least 3 satellites to calculate its

position in a process similar to the one

used by ancient navigators, who could

calculate their positions based on the

location of the stars in the sky. That

was, after all, how Pedro Álvares Cabral

conducted his fleet of ships to the coast

of Brazil (although a less romantic

vision says that in fact his fleet was taken off track by a storm, while the Portuguese

captain was trying to go around Africa to get to India…).

500 years later, Frotcom has also found the path to

Brazil. After all, it was written in the stars!

On July 1st, Frotcom Brazil started its operations. This was

a long awaited moment and one that both Frotcom

International and FEC.COM, the company assuming Frotcom Brazil, had been

preparing for a long time. The access to the Brazilian market, although quite

interesting from the sales viewpoint, has to tackle some specific restrictions on legal,

fiscal and logistical levels.

Frotcom Brazil’s CEO, José Cláudio Curado, has extensive experience in areas such

as transports, management and factoring. He says that “Frotcom is a very

competitive solution and its success in Brazil will come as no surprise. We have

been analyzing very carefully the vehicle tracking market in Brazil and Frotcom

has a number of advantages over local competition, which we will try to

leverage.”

ROADMAP congratulates José Cláudio and the Frotcom Brazil

team and wishes them great success.

Some words about the Federative Republic of Brazil

Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America, the world's eighth largest

economy at market exchange rates and the ninth largest in purchasing power parity

(PPP), according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Brazilian

economy has been predicted to become one of the five largest in the world in the

decades to come, the GDP per capita following and growing.

> Capital: Brasilia > Language: Brazilian Portuguese > Currency: Real (BRL)

> Territory: 8,514,877 sq km > Population: 192.9 mln > GDP: 1 973.6 billion (2009)

Did you know

Triangulation or trilateration?

Most descriptions of GPS say the

technology uses triangulation to

determine the position of a receiver

on the earth.

We have used this description

ourselves in several occasions.

Mathematically speaking, though, the

GPS system uses trilateration.

What is the difference between both

methods?

Triangulation determines position

by measuring the angles of the

triangles formed between an

observer and three known points.

Trilateration determines position by

measuring the distance from an

observer to three known points;

the timing signals sent from GPS

satellites (the known points) to a

receiver determine those distances.

So, GPS uses trilateration and not

triangulation.

Although both methods have the

same goal – finding the location of a

fourth object in relation to other three

– the algorithm used is quite different.

Based on an article from Scientific

American

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank


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Case Study Vehicle tracking in Morocco

Founded in 1986, Telcabo is a group that operates in the Telecommunication and

Energy Markets, offering a range of services from design, engineering, construction,

installation to operation and maintenance of telecommunication and energy

networks. With a continuous focus on training, qualification and excellence of its

resources, the Telcabo group works in 4 continents.

Telcabo Maroc was the second company of the group

to have opted for Frotcom, after Telcabo Portugal.

According to Amílcar Faustino, Diréctor Général

of Telcabo Maroc, “We chose Frotcom, first,

because of the very positive comments received

from Telcabo Portugal. Then, because it offered

all the information we needed for tracking the

vehicles, as well as to know the mileage and time spent to arrive to each

customer, in real time. This was information we did not have prior to adopting

Frotcom.”

Because 80% of the work of Telcabo Maroc is done in mountain areas, another

aspect quite appreciated by Telcabo Maroc was the fact that Frotcom in Morocco –

as in several other countries – can commute automatically between several different

GSM networks, opting for the strongest one. Therefore, the total coverage is

maximized, leading to fewer communication “black spots”. The easy access to the

tracking data, from any computer or Smartphone was also a plus for Telcabo Maroc.

Currently, all the cars of Telcabo Maroc are equipped with Frotcom devices.

New features in Frotcom Regions

Some clients need to perform a region based control of their fleet. For

instance, some international transportation companies need to know

exactly how many kms were travelled per country.

To solve this problem, a new Traffic by region report showing the kms travelled in

each country was developed. In case information is also available at a lower

administrative level, it will be possible to produce a higher segmentation of the

report, showing the kms travelled per district within each country. Simultaneously,

Frotcom’s Out of zone and Zone entrance alarms were altered in order to allow for

the use of regions as zones.

Tip of the month

Note: this tip is only valid for vehicles

equipped with a CANBus device.

Frotcom’s CANBus module can read

data such as fuel level in the tank,

engine speed, engine temperature and

tachograph information.

In the specific case of fuel, two graphs

are available: Fuel level (%) and Fuel

level variation (%).

The fuel level (%) graph shows the

level of fuel as a percentage of the total

capacity of the tank. The fuel level

variation (%) shows very clearly when

there are sharp fuel level variations,

either positive (refueling operation) or

negative (sudden fuel level drop in the

tank).

If you take the next graph, for instance,

you will see that a refueling operation

took place (positive peak). By right

clicking on the peak, you can now

choose the Show this moment on map

operation.

Once you choose that option, you will

be able to see the exact place in the

map where that operation occurred:

With this option, you can easily check

whether or not this is a valid place for

loading/unloading fuel.

Mapping sudden

fuel variations

Tip of the month

Departments

When you create a place in Frotcom,

you can associate it to a Department. A

Department is a division of a company,

such as Sales, Customer Care,

Administration, and so forth.

To associate a Department to a place,

edit it in Administration > Places and

pick one of the available Departments.

If you still have not created the

Departments, you can do it by clicking

the pencil button. Then, enter all the

Departments in the company.

Once you have associated your places

to Departments, you can use this

segmentation in the Permanence in

places report. With this report, you

can see in which places the vehicles

have been and for how long. You can

ask to generate the report for the places

of all Departments, or only for the

places of a specific department.

For instance, a company distributing

materials to stores across the country

may create Departments Sales South

and Sales North. It will be possible

then to generate two automatic

permanence reports: one with the visits

to the stores in the South and another

with the visits to the stores in the

North. Each report may go to a different

person.


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Joining us Technical support team grows

Due to Frotcom’s quick growth in the Frotcom Certified

Partner’s network and total number of end users and vehicles

controlled, we strengthened the technical support team by

hiring a Technical Support Specialist.

With more than 5 years experience in technical support,

Ricardo Marques has a strong expertise on different

technologies. ROADMAP welcomes Ricardo on board!

News and events Frotcom East Africa’s big product launch

On June 4th, Frotcom East Africa gathered

more than 100 top executives of reference

companies and organizations in Kenya and

Tanzania, for the official product launch of

Frotcom in East Africa. The event which as

you can see from the image even included

some special FX, was followed by a nice

gala dinner.

The launch, held in Nairobi, had as main

objective to disseminate Frotcom and the

benefits of its use, throughout the main

companies and state organizations in the

East African region.

Several invited speakers participated in the event, such as Mr. Wallace Atim of Wallukat

Investments, the first client of Frotcom in East Africa, who provided a great testimonial

of the advantages of using Frotcom. Valerio Marques was also invited to speak in

representation of Frotcom International.

Numerous companies and state organizations present at the event requested meetings

with Frotcom East Africa, to start adopting Frotcom in the management of their fleets.

Jackson Fagio, CEO of Frotcom East Africa reported that “The event was clearly a

success and we are now profiting from the contacts made with this top companies.”

Roadmap would like to congratulate Jackson, Florence and the whole Frotcom East

Africa team for this superb event.

In the next issue

News and events,

more new Frotcom features

and tips will be presented.

This and more, so don’t miss

the next issue of Roadmap.

july 2010 - frotcom roadmap newsletter

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