CES 2007: Your cellphone can re-route you around traffic jams

Las Vegas (NV) - We have had our fair share of new GPS navigation systems at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. But if it's the basics you are looking for and you need a navigation system that is always with you, than it probably does not get much better than Telenav's Navigator.

Telenav is not a navigation device by itself, but software that is downloaded to GPS capable phones that are offered by a variety of cellular carriers in the U.S. We have sampled the first-generation service a little over a year ago and were impressed with the overall functionality of the service on a smallish cellphone screen. Since then, some shortcomings of the technologically have been enhanced - for example, static maps are no dynamic and move with the user.

A new service is "Traffic," a capability to detect the flow of traffic and, if necessary re-route the user around critical events, such as accidents and traffic jams. The service is supported by data that is collected from road sensors maintained by the Department of Transportation (DoT) as well as fleet data that is collected from the GPS systems commercial systems installed for example in trucks. The traffic service is free if users sign up for the Telenav's general navigation service until June 30 2007, which is priced at $10 per month. Beginning in July 2007, the traffic service is available for an additional $4 per month.

We will review Telenav's new navigation and traffic system soon to see how good it really is.