QC $11.53/wk

[davekc]

Costs way too much. Even by comparison of what the carriers charge. Yep.....they are making money from it. No surprise.
I think as technology gets more and more advanced, other advance and economical systems will come out. Keep in mind that it isn't just the system, but how it is integrated into the carriers computer systems. Any change would be pretty involved. With that said, there are customers that do have this type of requirement for their shipments. But, one can still operate without it, just some limitations on some accounts.

 

[Turtle]

Just a couple of points. Satellite, cell and even WiFi are the technologies that Qualcomm incorporates into the new OmniVision QC system. Qualcomm, for at least three years now, has no plans that are airtime or character based, meaning they don't charge by the byte or by the character, so there is no charge for sending and receiving messages. All of that is incorporated into the base rate plan. Even with the older OmniTracks system that most of us are still using, they have more bandwidth than they know what to do with (so what was said in 1999 wouldn't, and certainly shouldn't, apply today).

Depending on the plan the carrier has, if the carrier has a lot of QC units out there, the weekly charge per unit drops significantly. In any case, yes, the carrier is going to charge more than the actual fee from Qualcomm. It covers the cost of repair and replacement, whicn can be significant, but is lessened the more units the carrier has. Yes, it's perfectly legal to charge $35 a week for something that costs them far, far less. But being legal doesn't make it any less scummy.

The average repair cost for a QC unit is about $1200. Qualcomm doesn't give much of a deal on replacement parts, and most are rather pricey. The repair is usually a specialized repair, as well, so the labor is ridiculous (especially since most repairs involve swapping out a board). It can also take one to two weeks to get parts in some cases. The prospect of having to shell out that kind of money for repairs is what has so far prevented me from getting my own unit. Of course, I've had this one for more than 3 years now and it's been rock solid. I figure, as long as I keep paying $35 a week it will continue to work perfectly. If I buy my own I'll have nothing but problems out of it, I have no doubt.

 

[OntarioVanMan]

I find the 35 bucks pricey because here at E-1 we basically only get our load info on the QC....# of units in an area is pretty much useless....no positioning nada....It'll say 2cv's 3 sprinters but whats my position? Is thier a team or solo ahead of me...?? We don't have the info P2 or the Feds get.