Construction projects, accidents, even actions by law enforcement all add to the congestion on our roadways, increasing driver frustration. When trapped in a sea of other commuters, what are your options? Most of us just clench down on our upper lips and turn up the sound system, trying hard to ignore the reality that the commute just took a turn for the worse. Or, if you're running late, you might find yourself resorting to extreme measures. You exit the congested road in search of an alternate route. Only this time you have pulled off the road into completely unfamiliar surroundings; but undaunted you choose the most logical direction available, and hope you soon reach some familiar landmark. But why rely on hope when technology might provide a better solution to your problem?
The solution is radio technology. That's right. In its evolution it has become more than just a means for delivering music and entertainment. It's the perfect medium for delivering large amounts of digital data to vehicles. The people at CUE Corporation, based in Irvine, California know all about that. This company has quietly managed to build the largest radio data network in the world, and are currently doing business with some of the world's largest aftermarket and OEM manufacturers. CUE has some very high tech roots, having been founded in 1984 by Nokia, the largest manufacturer of cellular telephones on the planet. Currently, CUE's "Digital Radio Network" broadcasts over more than 600 radio stations throughout North America, and thus boasts a coverage area that includes over 98% of the population of the United States and Canada, including over 50,000 miles of roads and highways. In other words, CUE's services now reach subscribers in an area measuring over 2 million square miles. For example, CUE distributes numeric and alpha-numeric paging services to companies like AT&T Wireless, Ameritech, MobileMedia, Arch Communications, American Paging, Teletouch, and SkyTel. Chances are, if you use a message pager, it just might operate on the CUE radio network.
CUE broadcasts over the FM subcarrier, with a proprietary system they call SuperDARC, in effect "piggybacking" their signals on many of the country's FM radio stations, quite likely including some that you currently listen to. In fact, CUE is the only paging company to use the FM subcarrier to distribute its paging signals. As we all know from experience, we can often still receive FM radio in areas where our cell phones don't have a prayer of operating.
Zooming in a bit to see the coverage area in a highly populated state such as California, we see that all major arteries and population centers are given coverage:
Cue's first services offered specialized in providing messaging service to long-haul truckers, railroads, and other customers requiring communication coverage in remote areas. It was a perfect low cost way to get large amounts of data into the vehicle no matter what its location. What about their coverage in a far less populated state like New Mexico, for instance? As you can see, it is still quite good, covering most of the major population centers, and therefore the areas likely to have the greatest number of traffic problems. Except perhaps for Roswell, where the only traffic to be encountered would most likely be of the extraterrestrial variety, which the folks at CUE would have very little control over!
Great, now that their transmission technology has been explained, let's take a closer look at CUE's services, how you can get them, and what they can do for you. First and foremost is TrafficNet, the first system designed to deliver "real-time route specific traffic information" to the vehicle, according to the company.