The official website for High Desert Vehicle Tracking, LLC., a commercial vehicle tracking company.

How do I select a cellular data plan?

Very carefully!

The amount of data sent is relatively low, and is viewed by the carriers as  a 'telemetry' application. Most carriers have a 1MegaByte plan, but as you see from the example below, a typical vehicle would come nowhere close to using all of this available plan. You can however increase the vehicle location update rate (programmable feature on all CES Wireless products).

•  Expect to pay from US$9.00 to $29.95 per vehicle, per month for cellular data airtime (bucket plans also negotiable).

•  Determine who is the cellular carrier with the most reliable and best coverage in your area.

•  Ignore companies who try and sell you a fleet management system using 'their" preferred carrier.  You will not have the flexibility to change carriers if service deteriorates, rates can increase without you having any negotiating power and your supplier will probably add a surcharge to the carrier data airtime fee. 

•  CES Wireless products are compatible with GPRS and CDMA. These services are provided by AT&T, T Mobile, Cingular, Sprint and Verizon. 

•  CES Wireless will process the paperwork to activate our products on these networks on your behalf, eliminating extra steps for you.

Definitions:   

Bit - A bit is short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a computer machine that is used to represent plain language.  A single bit can hold only one of two values: 0 or 1. 

Byte - A byte is a unit of measure of 8 bits. 

Kilobyte - A kilobyte is a unit of measure equal to 1024 bytes. 

Megabyte - A megabyte (1MB) is a unit of measure equal to 1,048,576 bytes or 1024 kilobytes(kbytes).

Example of data usage for a vehicle, per day:

•  12 hours of 15 minute GPS updates @ 1kbyte per update = 48 kbytes

•  12 hours of 5 minute GPS updates @  1kbyte per update = 576 kbytes

•  12 hours of 2 minute GPS updates @ 1kbyte per update =  1.440 Mbytes

•  12 hours or 1 hour GPS updates @ 1kbyte per update = 12 kbytes 

•  4 vehicle status message updates per hour for 8 hours @ 1kbyte per msg. = 32 kbytes

•  8 text messages per day @ 1kbyte typical per msg.  = 8 kbytes

•  Automatic message acknowledgements  =  2 kbytes

        - Daily 15 minute reporting = 60 kbytes

        - Monthly 15 minute reporting @ 20 days per month including = 1.2 Mbytes

        - including weekends = 1.44 Mbytes

        - Daily 5 minute reporting =  588 kbytes

        - Monthly 5 minute reporting  @ 20 days per month = 11.76 Mbytes

        - including weekends = 12 Mbytes

        - Daily 2 minute reporting = 1.452 Mbytes

       - Monthly 2 minute reporting  @ 20 days per month = 29.04 Mbytes

        - including weekends = 29.28 Mbytes

 It's not a difficult process and more easily accomplished when you complete the CES Wireless Survey Form.

Send mail to help.dept@americanvehicletracking.com with questions or comments about this web site.

Last modified: 05/11/12

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