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Case Studies The Challenge of Asset Tracking
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Assets / Vessel Tracking

The Challenge of Asset Tracking

Learn how Ground Control helps companies keep track of valuable assets around the globe.

At any time of day or night, millions of dollars' worth of goods are in transit across the globe.

A vast capital investment currently sits in container ships, freight trains and road haulage depots, part of a global supply chain. Businesses trust this complex network of freight forwarders, shipping agents, and logistic companies to move their assets from one part of the world to another, relying on their punctuality and ability to deliver their goods safely.

High-value, mission-critical assets and fragile or perishable goods demand close management and visibility in transit. They require detailed global tracking and monitoring, sophisticated systems that deliver temperature checks, condition reports, and regular time-stamped call-outs to confirm their location.

With such huge investments at stake and punctuality so critical, freight companies have come to rely on M2M cellular services to mitigate the risk of theft and damage and to meet the compliance demands of their customers and insurers.

The Problem with Most Cellular Tracking Solutions

Tracking goods through the global freight network can be very complex. In travelling from Istanbul to London, a single shipping container could pass through multiple carriers. It could be held at several different depots, cross several international boundaries, and be passed from road to rail to sea and back again.

For most cellular tracking solutions, this causes significant problems. Moving from one territory to another requires moving from one cellular carrier to another and most cellular tracking services simply don’t have the coverage required to deliver uninterrupted contact or offer a choice of roaming partners. Customers are tied to a single partner in each territory, regardless of the cost or quality of the service. More importantly, this means that if the main signal is lost, there’s no fall-back partner and coverage fails.

Moreover, there are significant billing and administrative shortcomings with traditional cellular solutions. Most carriers have different models for billing (fixed price, minimum quantity, per kilobyte of data etc) and this tends to be reflected in the complicated billing structure of most cellular services. Customers rarely know exactly what they are being billed for or what to expect and this makes it impossible to set – and keep to – precise budgets.

 

Global Coverage for Complete Visibility of Assets in Transit

Ground Control delivers an M2M data service that simplifies cellular asset tracking. Unlike other cellular tracking solutions, Ground Control provides genuinely global coverage and a single, simple pricing structure. Where other cellular tracking services have ‘holes’ in coverage, Ground Control calls upon a global network of partners in more than 160 countries to deliver a complete tracking service, keeping you in contact with your assets wherever they might be.

Where other services provide a complex web of pricing structures, Ground Control works from a single, global, flat-rate price, giving you a predictable and transparent charging structure that allows you to plan and budget to the last penny.

Ground Control offers a data-only service designed specifically to meet the needs of M2M communications. Unlike other services, it was designed with all the features required to support sophisticated mobile asset management.

 

  • TRIGGERED ALARM CALLS
  • TIME STAMP CALL OUT SIGNALS
  • POSITIONAL REPORTING
  • GPRS AND SMS DELIVERY