MONTVALE, N.J.-In a role reversal for the high-tech communications revolution, 27 million blue-collar workers nationwide are targeted as the early adopters for Geotek Communications Inc.’s spring rollout of enhanced mobile workstations and supporting networks.
Last week, Geotek introduced the commercial start-up of its digital, spread-spectrum Frequency Hopping Multiple Access network in Washington D.C., and Baltimore. The company already launched its Philadelphia network in January. And by late April, Geotek plans to go commercial in Boston, Miami and New York. By next year, the company intends to have its networks in commercial operation in all 36 cities where Geotek now owns 900 MHz radio licenses.
A successful U.S. showcase of the system could validate Geotek’s use of its proprietary FHMA technology, which is designed for highly efficient use of limited spectrum and for clarity of audio communications. A well-executed American debut also should provide Geotek with a springboard to overseas deployment of its systems. South Korea is the first possible target, according to Yaron Eitan, president and chief operating officer. “We are in a bidding process, managed by the Ministry of Communications, for a nationwide digital trunked radio system,” Eitan said. “If we’re successful, that will be our next huge project-complicated but extremely exciting.”
Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America in Atlanta began full-scale production of Geotek’s four-in-one units, designed to combine the functions of cellular phones, pagers, two-way radios and data services, including automatic vehicle locaters.
“Keep it simple, stupid” seems to be the unspoken philosophy of the company and of Geotek U.S. Business President Jonathan C. Crane. Simplicity for the end user means the service will be easy to operate, eliminate any duplicated hardware and allow employees to be managed efficiently.
“We are focused on business solutions for the approximately two million small businesses and their 27 million mobile employees-plumbers, couriers, limousine services, etc.” Crane said. “We want to use mobile information to transform antiquated blue-collar businesses, which haven’t seen much benefit yet from the information revolution.”
Once blue-collar workers, already familiar with two-way radio, become comfortable with the integrated services provided by Geotek, Eitan envisions that the next wave of adapters would be mobile white-collar workers, like salespeople.
Simplicity also applies to the modular communications networks, which need just a dozen or so cell sites in major cities, all on tall buildings already housing other similar equipment. Crane calls the approach “macro cellular-powerful stations and few of them. Our cell sites are 10 to 12 miles away from the base station.” IBM Corp. is building Geotek’s FHMA networks, providing turnkey site construction and project management services for about 200 Geotek base stations nationwide.
Simplicity translates into a competitive cost structure to the end users, Geotek said. The company is marketing its multipurpose units and services through retail electronics stores. Depending on the dealer and the number of features desired, a unit will cost from $1,000 to $1,750, compared to $3,000 to buy individual pieces of equipment for paging, cellular and two-way radio, Crane said. Service charges will run about $100 to $125, about half the cost of using separate units, he said.
Crane hit the ground running in October when he assumed the newly created post of president and COO of Geotek U.S. Business. As such, he is responsible for Geotek’s ambitious rollout schedule in this country. Simultaneously, Crane is charged with completing Geotek’s conversion from a hub for research and development into a commercial business with effective sales, marketing, billing, distribution and other necessary departments.
Additionally, Crane is Geotek’s representative in the ongoing Federal Communications Commission 900 MHz auction. “We do a bid in the morning, digest it, do a bid in the afternoon, digest it, then eat dinner and digest that,” he said.
As an incumbent bidder, Geotek obtained secondary site protection in markets where it already has licenses. Its ultimate goal is to tap all 40 of the nation’s top urban markets and the blue-collar businesses whose mobile work force primarily travels within a 50-mile radius of center cities.
“It’s all push-to-talk and point-and-click, and we think we can explain how to use the system in under 90 minutes.” Crane said. “It’s good for inventory control on short-distance delivery, for fleet administration like substituting or rerouting drivers; it can block long-distance calls. And I’m doing all this from my base station. There’s no need to come in.”
