KEY POINTS:
As I wrote in the Herald last week, three of the large satellite navigation companies - Garmin, Navman and TomTom are going head to head at the moment with new line-ups of in-car satnav devices priced from $399.
I've been driving around with the TomTom One XL ($599) suckered to the windscreen of my car for a couple of weeks now and I'm pretty impressed.
The 4.3-inch widescreen makes a big difference - the last satnav device I used was a much smaller Garmin Nuvi. The extra screen real estate makes a big difference. The Geosmart software implementation is pretty smooth - anyone who has used a Navman will take to it with ease.
Able to direct to the exact street number and with points of interest info showing you the location of nearby ATMs, gas stations and bus stops, the current generation of satnav devices pretty much have everything you need to get where you're going in the most direct way.
What separates the big brands then is form factor, the menu design and how easy it is to update the software via the web.
TomTom, with its desktop software TomTom Home, makes it easy to download updates and personalise the device with new voices.
Navman has done a good job with NavPix, allowing you to use all those geo-coded photos on Flickr to add points of interest to your Navman device.
But satnav will only become really useful for the daily commuter when it incorporates traffic alerts so the device can re-route you around traffic black spots and get you home quicker.
Most of the satnav devices currently selling have the ability to receive traffic updates, either with a built-in receiver or an add-on.
But the infrastructure doesn't exist here yet to generate the traffic updates.
There are two main ways to receive the data updates - over the mobile phone network or via a FM radio signal sent out just like commercial radio signals.
The mobile service is potentially easier to set up and as long as your satnav has Bluetooth capability, you should be able to use any data-capable phone to receive the data updates and pass them wirelessly to the satnav.
It sounds simple enough but mobile data and Bluetooth can be fiddly. That's why satnav companies are generally opting for a radio-based service.
Welcome to the new Suna traffic information system, developed by Intelematics Australia, a subsidiary of the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria.
As The Australian reports, Australia has already gone with a system called Suna, which is being run by Intelematics Australia, a subsidiary of Victoria's RAC.
Suma is based on a popular FM-radio system used in Europe called Traffic Message Channel (TMC).
The service is complicated and costly to set up. Sensors have to be widely dispersed around the roading network to gauge traffic flows.
In Australia they're being used in conjunction with cameras built into traffic light control systems and data sent from monitoring vehicles deployed in congested areas. All of the info is collated by traffic experts at a control centre before being sent out on the air.
Suna is already operational in Melbourne and will be extended to Sydney and Brisbane by the middle of next year. Such a service is barely in the planning stage here as the market for satnav systems is small.
The likely candidate for hosting such a service is state-owned broadcaster Kordia, which delivers the existing FM radio footprint nationwide.
Then a telematics company has to get involved to manage the sensors and data collection. It's no small task to organise, but it's when traffic monitoring is built into satnav systems that the devices will really go mainstream.
The local tech blogosphere:
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Rod Drury wines and dines new Telecom boss.
