Trinity Telecomms (Trinity) was founded in 1999 by managing director, Ross Hickey, with its sole focus being distribution of the Wavecom range of wireless products on behalf of Fargo Africa. Trinity today acts as the African hub for Wavecom and its business is expanding into the rest of the continent through customer applications that complement the rollout of GSM-based networks. Eleven of the company's staff, including general manager, Derick Roberts, and three field application engineers, are located at its headquarters in Johannesburg. Ross Hickey recently relocated to Cape Town and has established an office there to provide a permanent presence to customers in that region.
Through Wavecom, Trinity specialises in four areas of business, these being:
* Vehicle tracking and fleet management wireless connectivity solutions.
* Connection for voice applications. consisting of least cost routing and GSM pay phones.
* Telemetry connectivity for switching, control, alarming notification and wireless remote management through tough industrialised modem options.
* Personal digital assistant (PDA) or laptop connectivity to enable voice, data, GPRS-Internet access, e-mail, fax and SMS wireless-capability through PCM/CIA and USB modem options.
The Wavecom products distributed by Trinity have ICASA as well as CE and cellular network approval. Trinity and Wavecom can also assist customers with full type approval of their final integrated solutions should they decide to do integration development themselves.
As for Wavecom, this is a new generation company that is driven by the expanding applications of wireless technology. Established in 1993 in Paris, it boasts a staff complement that today consists of over 900 people with the main focus in R&D. Turnover in financial 2002 was some 551 million Euros, an increase of 71% over the previous period. In 2002 the company shipped some 8,8 million products and spent 62,7 million Euros on its core business, namely, research and development.
R&D focus
Wavecom focuses its resources on R&D, product design and customer support. The company outsources the manufacture, assembly and test of its products, using facilities in both France and Romania. This strategy allows it to access state-of-the-art facilities and processes without expensive capital outlay. Amongst the company's many prestigious customers are Handspring, IBM, TCL, Magnetti Marelli, Autoliv and Grundig. The latter customer is interesting as Grundig recently contracted Wavecom to supply the wireless technology product that will be integrated into on-board truck terminals for use in Germany's 'Toll Collect' system. Several hundred thousand WISMO Quik modules have been ordered and this system may eventually see the elimination of manned toll booths.
The Wavecom range of products covers modems and modules for GSM, GPRS and even CDMA. While CDMA may seem of little interest here in SA, the use of CDMA modules could open up vast markets for whatever solution, manufactured by some local company for distribution to, for example, markets in countries like China, Israel, Australia, the USA, or South America, where CDMA networks are very prominent.
Wavecom focuses solely on modem and module manufacture and this provides the company with its competitive edge with an estimated 70% of the world market for these products. The company is very flexible in what it can provide to the final system suppliers and offers its products in integrated complete modem form, fully integrated form or as a standalone device.
Wireless solutions from Trinity have proved highly successful in Africa for various applications because of the limited fixed landline infrastructure availability combined with the growing need for connectivity and the easy deployment of GSM networks to correct this deficiency.
Modules fully-integrated
The core Wavecom technology is: WISMO (wireless standard module), the GSM WISMO having been launched in 1997. The WISMO product line can today be used in many markets including mobile computing for man machine interface, right down to automated machine-to-machine interfaces. WISMO provides everything needed for wireless capabilities in one small modular unit. Its Open AT platform allows on-board programming space therefore eliminating bulky designs and components and is therefore ideally suited for customer customisation of products into the smallest of spaces. As it is fully integrated and field proven with wireless networks worldwide, the technology provides customers with the ability to slash application development time and costs.
Because WISMO-based applications are modular it is easy to change frequency bands and standards. Simply plug in the right WISMO and the application is ready to operate in new markets. Wavecom believes that the WISMO is the smallest integrated wireless solution available which means that it has become the market leader for phones, PDAs and other handheld devices. WISMO products range from GSM/GPRS 900/1800 or 850/1900 MHz versions right up to the Quadband GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900 MHz devices. Wavecom shipped its one millionth WISMO module during 2001 and in the same year received an order from Korean company Sewon Telecom for 550 000 modules.
In terms of complete modems Wavecom offers either the FASTRACK stand-alone plug and play unit or the board-mounted INTEGRA solution. Both of these are available in 900/1800 or 900/1900 versions.
Easy development
To complement its industry-leading hardware, Wavecom has also developed an open platform software offering called the MUSE Platform (Modular User Software Environment) or also referred to as Open AT. The MUSE Platform allows developers to easily develop and embed wireless applications directly onto WISMO modules and modems. Wavecom intends to continually develop and upgrade the MUSE Platform with new innovations and initiatives as displayed through already available different memory size module options allowing for bigger programming space made available for applications. This is combined with the module's existing switching, monitoring and integration capabilities via keyboards, digital I/O, LCD, SPI bus, I2C bus or virtual second UART capability.
The latest engine from Wavecom offers Class 10 GPRS connectivity combined with on-board TCP/IP stacks. The customer can manipulate this to whatever solution is required to be developed.
In regard to applications, the WISMO is ideal for the personal communication device and modules can be easily plugged into the smallest handsets. The WISMO, with its GSM/GPRS capabilities is also ideal in the automotive market where, for example, a vehicle equipped with an integrated modem plus GPS can automatically send an alarm signal to a control room. This can be followed by a data message from the control room to automatically shut down the engine or monitor critical failure points. In terms of machine to machine interfacing, one novel application is Wavecom technology allowing meters to be read locally or remotely over a wireless network or even to have fridges communicating stock levels or maintenance problems pro-actively instead of the reactive damage control - currently the norm for sensitive products not being monitored sufficiently.
Support
Trinity's objective is to become the leading Wavecom distributor globally, and to achieve this through offering not only the best and most competitive wireless technology available, but to provide outstanding levels of service and support. A major part of its success has been its 'neutral stance' approach where the company does not compete at product level with any of its customers.
Where necessary, Trinity can provide support to local customers and also has access to a vast R&D resource in Paris. Another great benefit, if time for development is a problem, is that Trinity can often put customers in touch with others who have implemented similar solutions - there is often no need to reinvent the wheel in terms of the core technology if it is the application that is innovative.
Trinity exhibits at most major telecommunications and related exhibitions. In-house demonstrations can also be organised to prove the effectivity of the applications. Full details of the Wavecom product range can be found at www.wavecom.com or www.trintel.co.za.
| Tel: | +27 11 465 7377 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.trinity.co.za |
| Articles: | More information and articles about Trinity IoT |
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