Monthly newsletter addressing issues related to Frotcom products and services, customer case studies and success stories of Frotcom, among other interesting issues about our business activity.
1. July 2010
Roadmap monthly newsletter In this issue
Frotcom arrives in Brazil
Redescovering the Americas
Case study
Editorial Vehicle tracking in Morocco
F
rotcom has expanded its operations to Brazil.
New features in Frotcom
After a thorough analysis of the Brazilian vehicle Regions
tracking market and of the legal and logistical
constraints, Frotcom International has officially This and much more…
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 roadmap@frotcom.com.
Roadmap Monthly Newsletter | roadmap@frotcom.com | Tel + 351 214 135 670 | Fax +351 214 135 678
Frotcom vehicle tracking system | www.frotcom.com
Algeria | Angola |Belgium | Brazil | Bulgaria | Cameroon | D. R. Congo | Greece | Kenya | Luxemburg | Madagascar | Mauritius |
Morocco | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | Rwanda | Senegal | Seychelles | Slovenia | Spain | Tanzania | Uganda
1
2. Did you know
Triangulation or trilateration?
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
Most descriptions of GPS say the
vision says that in fact his fleet was taken off track by a storm, while the Portuguese
technology uses triangulation to
captain was trying to go around Africa to get to India…).
determine the position of a receiver
on the earth.
500 years later, Frotcom has also found the path to
Brazil. After all, it was written in the stars!
We have used this description
On July 1st, Frotcom Brazil started its operations. This was ourselves in several occasions.
a long awaited moment and one that both Frotcom
International and FEC.COM, the company assuming Frotcom Brazil, had been Mathematically speaking, though, the
preparing for a long time. The access to the Brazilian market, although quite GPS system uses trilateration.
interesting from the sales viewpoint, has to tackle some specific restrictions on legal,
fiscal and logistical levels. What is the difference between both
methods?
Frotcom Brazil’s CEO, José Cláudio Curado, has extensive experience in areas such
Triangulation determines position
as transports, management and factoring. He says that “Frotcom is a very
by measuring the angles of the
competitive solution and its success in Brazil will come as no surprise. We have
triangles formed between an
been analyzing very carefully the vehicle tracking market in Brazil and Frotcom
observer and three known points.
has a number of advantages over local competition, which we will try to
leverage.”
Trilateration determines position by
measuring the distance from an
ROADMAP congratulates José Cláudio and the Frotcom Brazil observer to three known points;
team and wishes them great success. the timing signals sent from GPS
satellites (the known points) to a
Some words about the Federative Republic of Brazil receiver determine those distances.
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 So, GPS uses trilateration and not
triangulation.
(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
Although both methods have the
decades to come, the GDP per capita following and growing.
same goal – finding the location of a
> Capital: Brasilia > Language: Brazilian Portuguese > Currency: Real (BRL) fourth object in relation to other three
> Territory: 8,514,877 sq km > Population: 192.9 mln > GDP: 1 973.6 billion (2009) – the algorithm used is quite different.
Roadmap Monthly Newsletter | roadmap@frotcom.com | Tel + 351 214 135 670 | Fax +351 214 135 678 Based on an article from Scientific
Frotcom vehicle tracking system | www.frotcom.com American
Algeria | Angola |Belgium | Brazil | Bulgaria | Cameroon | D. R. Congo | Greece | Kenya | Luxemburg | Madagascar | Mauritius |
Morocco | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | Rwanda | Senegal | Seychelles | Slovenia | Spain | Tanzania | Uganda
2
3. Tip of the month
Departments
Case Study
Vehicle tracking in Morocco
Note: this tip is only valid for vehicles
Founded in 1986, Telcabo is a group that operates in the Telecommunication and equipped with a CANBus device.
Energy Markets, offering a range of services from design, engineering, construction,
installation to operation and maintenance of telecommunication and energy Frotcom’s CANBus module can read
data such as fuel level in the tank,
networks. With a continuous focus on training, qualification and excellence of its
engine speed, engine temperature and
resources, the Telcabo group works in 4 continents.
tachograph create a place in Frotcom,
When you information.
you can associate it to a Department. A
Telcabo Maroc was the second company of the group In the specific case of fuel, two graphs
Department is a division of a company,
to have opted for Frotcom, after Telcabo Portugal. are available: Fuel level (%) and Fuel
such as Sales, Customer Care,
level variation (%).
According to Amílcar Faustino, Diréctor Général Administration, and so forth.
of Telcabo Maroc, “We chose Frotcom, first, The fuel level (%) graph shows the
To associate a Department to a place,
because of the very positive comments received level of fuel as a percentage of the total
edit it in Administration > Places and
from Telcabo Portugal. Then, because it offered capacity of the tank. The fuel level
pick one of the available Departments.
all the information we needed for tracking the variation (%) shows very clearly when
vehicles, as well as to know the mileage and time spent to arrive to each there are sharp fuel level variations,
either positive (refueling operation) or
customer, in real time. This was information we did not have prior to adopting
negative (sudden fuel level drop in the
Frotcom.”
tank).
Because 80% of the work of Telcabo Maroc is done in mountain areas, another If you take the next graph, for instance,
aspect quite appreciated by Telcabo Maroc was the fact that Frotcom in Morocco – you will see that a refueling operation
as in several other countries – can commute automatically between several different took place
If you still(positivenot created right
have peak). By the
clicking on the peak,do it by clicking
Departments, you can you can now
GSM networks, opting for the strongest one. Therefore, the total coverage is
choose the Show this moment on map
the pencil button. Then, enter all the
maximized, leading to fewer communication “black spots”. The easy access to the
operation.
Departments in the company.
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. Once you have associated your places
to Departments, you can use this
segmentation in the Permanence in
Mapping sudden
places report. With this report, you
New features in Frotcom can seefuel which places the vehicles
in variations
Regions have been and for how long. You can
ask to generate the report for the places
Some clients need to perform a region based control of their fleet. For of all Departments, or only for the
instance, some international transportation companies need to know places of a specific department.
Once you choose that option, you will
exactly how many kms were travelled per country.
be able to seea the exact place in the
For instance, company distributing
To solve this problem, a new Traffic by region report showing the kms travelled in map where that operation the country
materials to stores acrossoccurred:
each country was developed. In case information is also available at a lower may create Departments Sales South
administrative level, it will be possible to produce a higher segmentation of the and Sales North. It will be possible
report, showing the kms travelled per district within each country. Simultaneously, then to generate two automatic
Frotcom’s Out of zone and Zone entrance alarms were altered in order to allow for permanence reports: one with the visits
the use of regions as zones. to the stores in the South and another
with this option,to the stores in the
With the visits you can easily check
North. Each not this is a valid place for
whether or report may go to a different
Roadmap Monthly Newsletter | roadmap@frotcom.com | Tel + 351 214 135 670 | Fax +351 214 135 678 person.
loading/unloading fuel.
Frotcom vehicle tracking system | www.frotcom.com
Algeria | Angola |Belgium | Brazil | Bulgaria | Cameroon | D. R. Congo | Greece | Kenya | Luxemburg | Madagascar | Mauritius |
Morocco | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | Rwanda | Senegal | Seychelles | Slovenia | Spain | Tanzania | Uganda
3
4. Joining us
Technical support team grows In the next issue
Due to Frotcom’s quick growth in the Frotcom Certified
Partner’s network and total number of end users and vehicles News and events,
controlled, we strengthened the technical support team by
more new Frotcom features
hiring a Technical Support Specialist.
and tips will be presented.
With more than 5 years experience in technical support,
Ricardo Marques has a strong expertise on different
technologies. ROADMAP welcomes Ricardo on board!
This and more, so don’t miss
the next issue of Roadmap.
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.
Roadmap Monthly Newsletter | roadmap@frotcom.com | Tel + 351 214 135 670 | Fax +351 214 135 678
Frotcom vehicle tracking system | www.frotcom.com
Algeria | Angola |Belgium | Brazil | Bulgaria | Cameroon | D. R. Congo | Greece | Kenya | Luxemburg | Madagascar | Mauritius |
Morocco | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | Rwanda | Senegal | Seychelles | Slovenia | Spain | Tanzania | Uganda
4