Qualcomm Inc., San Diego, Calif., has formed a consortium to help develop Qualcomm's untethered trailer asset management system for the transportation and logistics industry.

Schneider National Inc., the nation’s largest truckload carrier, has joined as its founding member.
The Qualcomm Consortium will consist of executives from the transportation and related industries and will provide direction on bringing Qualcomm's untethered trailer tracking product to market. A Product Direction Council will provide feedback on product features. Council members will be able to participate in alpha and beta product testing.
Meanwhile, Schneider National announced it has chosen Qualcomm to provide untethered trailer tracking technology for its fleet. Schneider’s announcement referred to the product as TrailerTRACS. Qualcomm’s announcement contained no specific product name. According to Qualcomm, the TrailerTRACS product mentioned by Schneider is not yet available on the commercial market.
The back-to-back announcements from Qualcomm and Schneider appear in keeping with Qualcomm’s previously stated intention to bring an untethered trailer-tracking product to market some time this year. The company suspended sales of its previous untethered product, also called TrailerTRACS, in 1991 citing wireless regulatory concerns. Since then a large number of competing providers have entered the trailer-tracking market.
Earlier this year, Qualcomm released an asset tracking product for the construction industry. The company had said that product would serve as the basis for a new trucking industry tracking product.