Autonet's TRU Technology explained

One of the big differentiators between our product and other products is something we call our "TRU Technology", so I thought I'd explain a bit about what that is and the reasoning behind it. When we first started developing our In-Car router we essentially developed a product very similar to some of the other WiFi routers that are now on the market. They are basically just a cellular data card like you use in a laptop plugged into a WiFi router like what you might have at your home or office. And what we found was that though that product worked OK for fixed or nomadic applications, it didn't work well in a moving vehicle. And that's when the real innovation started here at Autonet Mobile since we really saw the need for reliable connectivity in the automotive market and it was clear that it was not going to be solvable with a box only solution. After a lot of research and experimentation we learned what the issues were and how to solve them. And we came to realize that it was going to be necessary for us to not only build the In-Car router, but we also had to be an Internet Service Provider and run our own Network Operations Center. These things all have to work in tandem to provide the best possible solution These are four basic cornerstones of our "TRU Technology". I'll explain each one a bit and try not to get too techie with it.

1. TRU Link Management
2. TRU Session Management
3. TRU Network Management
4. TRU Content Management

TRU Link Management

If you've ever used a cellular data card in your laptop then you're familiar with the experience of having long (several seconds) connect times, long re-connect times, having to bring up some application and stopping/starting the connection or even having to unplug the card and replug it in when it stops working. Basically, what we do is have an agent running on our In-Car router that re-establishes the connection for you. And we do it in milli-seconds so you don't even experience a dropped connection. No need to install any special software or drivers and no need to be a networking expert to get it going. Our TRU Agent automatically detects when it needs to make a new connection or when a connection has stalled and it will do it without the user having to do anything.

TRU Session Management

This is where I'm going to get a little bit techie. The Internet is based upon the TCP/IP protocol (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_Suite for more detail then you ever cared to know about it) and it's really not the ideal protocol for the wireless world, but it's too late to change the Internet so we're stuck with it. When TCP/IP was first being developed everything was being run over modems with speeds of 1200 or 2400 baud. That's 1.2 Kbps and 2.4 Kbps, so you can imagine how slow and busy the network was. The architects of TCP/IP understood this well and they knew that network congestion was a big problem, so they designed TCP so that if a network message didn't make it to it's destination it would slow down how fast it was sending. They assumed (correctly at the time) that the reason a network message didn't make it to it's destination was because the network was too busy and they should force the sender to slow down.

Now, fast forward to today where our wireless network is running at speeds of 800 Kbbs to 2000 Kbps and we're still using the same protocols. In the wireless world when a network message doesn't make it to it's destination it's almost always because of a loss of a wireless signal. Could be due to bad coverage, wireless interferance, an obstruction, or whatever. It's almost never network congestion, so forcing the sender to slow down how fast they are sending doesn't help the problem at all and it only makes the applications run slower then they are capable of running.

Our session management technology fixes this by taking over the management of the TCP session from the users device. We're able to adjust the TCP parameters and timers on the cellular network without changing the settings on the users wireless device. This allows the user to use the same wireless device that they use in the home or office without having to install special software or device drivers.

TRU Network Management

This is probably the most important, but least flashy part of our technology. Our Director of Engineering Ron Pashby, and myself have a long history of working with new technologies and then figuring out how to effectively manage them and then scale them so that they were actually useful to users. In our past careers we would often come across new technologies that were really cool, but impractical to deploy because of the lack of consideration for management and scalability. In the In-Car router we have an agent that is constantly monitoring a number of things such as signal strength, packet loss, latency and speeds. The In-Car router can then automatically make adjustments to improve the user experience without the user having to do anything. The really cool thing is that the router can do all of this by itself without having to depend on the network to do it. And it reports all of this back to our Network Operations Center where our support folks can access it and help you if you ever call. Those low end routers you see out on the market now just can't do that because they don't have the CPU horsepower, our technology or a Network Operations Center that can actually manage the devices in the field.

TRU Content Management

This is an area that you probably haven't heard much about yet, but you will. Our In-Car Router not only supports reliable wireless connectivity, but it's also a platform that can support hosted applications and content. We have the ability to push content to your car from your home or the Internet at large. We'll be releasing a number of new applications and services this year that take advantage of this, so you'll have to stay tuned to get more details on those. The good thing is that the hardware platform we sell today is capable of supporting these already so you don't have to worry about obsolete hardware. Since we operate the network, we can easily do software updates over the air so you don't have to mess with doing it yourself.

Posted at 03:09PM Aug 08, 2009 by dmoeller in Doug Moeller  |