Taxi Driver Online

About a year or so ago there was repeated debates on this board about the PMR V GPRS.

A few of us saying PMR was in the early stages of death, others saying it had a long way to go and would not be replaced as the 'core' means of communication for the taxi industry.

In the last week I have seen marketing literature from the 'old established' market leaders in the booking and despatch industry, both who neglected GPRS when re designing their systems. Both now seem to be focusing on promoting their XDA type equipment.

Has anyone heard of people investing in PMR in the last year?

Anyone seen a CT4000 in action? (apart from Brighton of course).

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

How is not including an emerging technology (as it was 5 years ago) be 'neglecting GPRS when designing their new systems'? I'm sure few thought about Wifi and 3g at the same time - does this mean they are neglected?

I too have seen the literature from the 'old established' market leaders now incorporating GPRS, and I suppose you have a point that they are somewhat behind some of the newer players, but hey, at least they can fall back to 'good old PMR' if needbe, unlike the new guys

As for CT4000, I have personally seen it working in Doncaster and Newcastle. I've also seen the PDA version working in Twickenham.

People still invest in PMR purely because at least they know the cost (regardless of whether it is deemed more or less expensive than GPRS). Surely if I work 3 days this week and 5 days next, my GPRS bill fluctuates? What happens if I go over my 'GPRS allowance' too? What happens to GPRS on the Saturday afternoon of the FA Cup Final at Wembley, or at the British GP on race day, or New years? At least the PMR channel (hence the bandwidth) is all 'mine' rather than being 'shared' by someone else with me, the firm down the road, and anyone else looking up the 'Sun Sport Football' results on their mobile!

Comeon guys n gals, all join in - lets get a decent debate going on again like the 'good old days'

From my limited knowledge I think the only way forward is the same way as mobile phones.

Maybe this country will become a Wi Fi zone, and then none of us will pay a bean.

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IDFIMH

How are u Tom?i thought you had emigrated to a warmer climate its been that long since i seen any of your posts regarding the pmr vs gprs debate i think it has been thrashed out already on this forum but my own opinion is that any big company with say over 150 drivers with a pmr operation will hesitate to go all out onto gprs with all the costs the best way would be if you could run a mix fleet that is pmr & gprs togeather to give you a comparison to see what is working best for you yes a lot more data companies are now looking at gprs options but are the the old established companies on pmr changing over in their 100s to gprs i guess not but i think all companies are diffrent in how they run their operation

I am well Labraiz. Very busy thankfully.

Did you buy 4000's or stay with 3000's.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

We stayed with the ct 3000 i at this moment did'nt see the need for the new ct 4000s as i cud not see any great benefits it wud give us other than the sat nav built in but most of my drivers have their own sat navs also the system has been fitted in now for 4 months & it does what it said on the box so we are very happy with it but in the near future i will be getting about 10 pdas to run along side our pmr and see how it goes & take it from their but personally i dont think i wud invest in the ct 4000s but in time to come the pda yes

I wish I had a pound for every time Auriga has promised the new PDAs.

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IDFIMH

Surely Auriga has several customers using PDAs?

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

I would be interested to know how many use them, and only them, on their fleet.

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IDFIMH

What is the running costs of the gadgets????????, or how much is your bills, are they on a par with a mobile or cheaper

As far as i know their is only 1 firm black & white in Twickenham using them but to me it dosnt really make a difference when they release them its not as though our operation is in a great need for them for me it will be an experiment to see both pmr & gprs running on the same fleet to see the benefits of the pda's

Also is their any data despatch system running out their that is pmr & gprs compatible is anyone on this forum using such a system??

Aurigas one does. I know of a couple of their customers which are PMR, falling back to GPRS. They have also got a pure GPRS site in London using PDA's

We use mercury and we lose gprs 3-4 times a week, god knows why.

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stressed controller!!!

Then there is the coverage issue.

Our area has no Vodaphone (we are only 40 miles from London).
Five miles away, we have no 02 coverage.
On the peninsular, we have no Orange.
T-Mobile is strong in town, but does not exist beyond the hills.

What network should we use?

PMR is cheap and cheerful. Sure we get bad spots with PMR, but it is the devil we know.

Opinion: A system that runs least-cost-connection-available-routing, would surely be the best.

Are we the only company in the world that has installed several systems, then taken them out again and gone back to pen and paper?

But, we are tryers... We are currently installing Mobisoft.

Or, should that read gluttons for punishment?

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.