Vodacom Launches a New Vehicle Tracking SIM Card for South Africa

­South Africa's Vodacom has launched a vehicle tracking service in cooperation with Tracker and Sierra Wireless. The inSIM embedded SIM component was designed and developed by Wavecom, now part of Sierra Wireless, and will be used by Tracker, a stolen vehicle recovery and fleet management company. Vodacom provides Tracker with its network services.

Sierra Wireless' inSIM is a solution which embeds the SIM function into the Wireless CPU at the component level, eliminating the use of the traditional plastic SIM card thus reducing the ability for third parties to tamper with the SIM card.

Wally Beelders, Executive Director of Vodacom Business says, "This is a revolutionary innovation and we're excited to be the first network operator to have this product commercially available in South Africa. Tracker will also be the first vehicle tracking company to offer Sierra Wireless' new technology as part of their tracking device".

According to Olivier Beaujard, Vice President of Market Development at Sierra Wireless, the inSIM-enabled devices are able to operate in extreme temperatures and are resistant to vibration. "Our inSIM solution is a great fit for the vehicle tracking industry as it reduces the chance of the SIM being stolen and used for other purposes, while also reducing the space required for the tracking device, making it smaller and easier to install."

Vodacom says its partnership with Sierra Wireless will allow it to explore a variety of different machine-to-machine and telemetry solution options in the coming months.

"We believe we have only scratched the surface of this market and will be exploring a variety of different uses for this technology over the coming months," says Beelders.

Posted to the site on 6th October 2009