Intelematics, those traffic-lovin' Victorians who created the SUNA traffic channel for your satnav, are bringing their traffic updates to digital radio when it launches in May next year.

While the service won't be anywhere near as comprehensive or practical as the navigation built-in to your satnav (which lets you reroute to avoid congestion), this service will instead act more like the traffic updates you get from the radio already, except in text form on new DAB+ radios.

It won't cost anything to the user, so long as they have one of these new radio receivers in their car. And while most people aren't going to head to the local auto shop and buy a new radio for their car, within a few years pretty much all the new cars will come standard with these new radios, meaning traffic information will be readily available for people who own shiny new cars.

Actually, even though this is a pretty cool service for digital radio (which is almost certainly going to struggle to gain traction here), it'd still be cheaper to just buy a traffic-enabled satnav...

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The biggest thing holding satnavs back in this country has been a lack of real-time traffic information. Even though Intelematics launched the SUNA traffic channel in Melbourne last year, the other capital cities haven't had the same luxury.

It looks like all that's about to change, however. I received an invite to the official launch of Sydney and Brisbane's first real-time traffic information service. It's an extension of the Melbourne SUNA offering, which is currently supported by most of the major satnav providers (albeit via an optional extra antenna, in most cases).

They're also promising to announce some new local partnerships at the launch event, which happens on August 13. We'll be there, so stay tuned for updates then.

[SUNA on Giz]

I went to the SmartDemo show last week, where Intelematics, a car intelligence systems company (owned by the RACV) were showing off Australia's first traffic data system, SUNA Traffic Channel. SUNA (as in, get there 'sooner'... get it?) will be launching in September, and should be available through a number of GPS brands before Christmas.

The quick news is you should expect to pay between $100 and $300 extra for a unit with SUNA support, but that gives access for the life of the unit. The September date is for Melbourne (they're actually already broadcasting there), with Sydney and Brisbane expected mid 2008, and Adelaide and Perth later next year.

For the longer take on why this is awesome news (and probably the best service in the world right now), and what you need to know right now if you're thinking of buying sat nav (you should be able to buy a 'traffic ready' units now and upgrade later, if you just can't wait for a fully operational unit), read on.

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