On Star

3 Pages 837 Words

Onstar is new way of feeling safe, it is like having a cell phone, once you have it you do not feel safe without it. That was the idea the corporate managers had when they first decided to equip their vehicles with a Global Positioning System. Onstar has many features but serves only one purpose, keeping people safe. Onstar was established in 1995 as a subsidiary of GM. GM seen how the market of cell phones had grown and thought that a market in GPS would one day be just as strong. The technology was first implemented in three 1997-model-year Cadillacs and started off with about 100,000 customers. By the year, 2000 that number had grown to 1 million. Onstar is becoming increasingly popular every day with every new commercial, promotion, and new vehicle equipped with Onstar.
Onstar has revolutionized the GPS industry. Before Onstar only a few after market electronic devices were available and were not as user friendly or even come close to the features that are on the Onstar system. It is true a couple of cars were equipped with some type of GPS but were much too expensive for the average Joe to afford. In fact even today an average portable GPS device costs anywhere from $600 to over a $1000. With the Onstar system the equipment is already installed in the vehicle, the owner only pays $199 a year for the standard package and $399 for The Premium package.
The Onstar GPS system tracks the vehicle by satellites flying over the earth at about 11,000 miles. The satellites circle the earth two times in a 24-hour period and are monitored by the main OnStar headquarters in Troy, Michigan. The satellite can determine how far away the vehicle is from each satellite by keeping track of the time it takes for a radio wave to travel from the satellite to the receiver. Amazingly, the Onstar system can pinpoint the location of the car as close as one to two meters. Once a signal is transmitted from your vehicle to the Onstar headquar...