Tag Archives: mileage trakker

Approximation

Posted on by
Reply

The earth is a water world when seen from space

The earth is a water world when seen from space


In the classic tale, 3 blind men encounter an elephant. Each of them gives a different report based on their encounter. A space traveler flying by earth would see a water world covered in oceans. While this is the most accurate approximation, it would totally miss the land masses that are home to the earth’s population. Just like the blind man in the tale, some people who live in the great deserts of the world lack the personal experience to confirm the wet nature of our world.
Quoting is an exercise that is based on approximations. Most customers are unwilling to wait for the time that it takes to assemble a fully detailed list of the costs required to supply a product or service. The pendulum would need to swing really far back for customers to pay for estimates. I have not seen engineers paid for creating cost estimates since my dad worked for an engineering consulting firm. Successful lean firms usually receive quote requests to supply most of the product sold in their industry. This is especially true if they have evolved to the point where they are normally one of the lowest cost bidders. Purchasing agents are evaluated based on their ability to secure the best price. One of their tools is removing suppliers who refuse to quote every job from their bid list. José Ignacio (“Inaki”) López de Arriortúa invented a cost cutting tactic which appeared to work, because if you ask enough suppliers to quote, someone would bid less that it costs. Disgrace finally caught up with him when he was forced to resign from VW. Volkswagen agreed to pay GM $100 million and to buy $1 billion dollars worth of parts from GM to settle Lopez’s misconduct. The poor Tier 1 estimators who were bombarded with an excessive Lopez-inspired barrage of quote requests, gained the ability to estimate quickly and triage. Spreadsheets with tuned approximations were invented.
Spreadsheet use approximations to collect total cost

Spreadsheet use approximations to
collect total cost

In triage fashion two-thirds of the quotes were returned with a quickly calculated price that was 35% over market. I can only imagine the effect of approximate high bid pricing on the cost planners at automotive headquarters. Usually you should make an assessment of the capability of the lowest bidders before you spend 2 billion dollars supplying them with custom tooling. The fact that this tooling never made a part for GM is also part of Lopez’s legacy. At this juncture the effect of this unnecessary cash flow on the GM bankruptcy is simply arm chair quarterbacking. I remember Neil Armstrong (a professor at the University of Cincinnati where I went to school) talking about the danger of space travel. “As an astronaut, you remember that the rocket is made by the lowest bidder.”

The IRS uses our tendency to save time by using approximations to their advantage. Yes, it is possible to compute your mileage deduction using the distances computed by MapQuest. I know this because I have spent many a Christmas holiday recreating the log of mileage needed to qualify for the deduction. Now that my http://mileagetrakker.com device generates an accurate log for me, I discovered that the approximate method left a bunch of money sitting on the table. Actual trips include gas stops, detours, errands, procurement stops, sales calls that usually get left off the recreated list. Having lived both methods, I understand how it happens. Most of my trips occur when my business is busy. It is unusual to have an extra second or two to record mileage when you are running behind.

Format Wars

Posted on by
Reply

The VHS vrs Beta war raged for many years

The VHS vrs Beta war raged for many years


The VHS verses Beta cassette tape war is the classic example of a format war. Consumers who purchased a video tape player desired to purchase every future tape in the same format. Once they had a collection of tapes, even wearing out a tape player was not going to get them to change. The furniture industry jumped onto the bandwagon making shelving units to house our collections of tapes. This war raged on without a winner or loser until the DVD splashed onto the scene.
The small size of the DVD media displaced our use of Video tapes in a few years

The small size of the DVD
media displaced our use of Video tapes in a few years

. In the near future high speed internet and streaming video will displace DVD as the pace of technology accelerates. Streaming video will cause us to forget about the blue ray format war that superseded the Beta / VHS battle
Some format wars last for many years with no end in sight. A good example is the metric system. The engineering community had no problem quickly adopting metric dimensioning on drawings. In CAD especially, converting from one dimension system to the other is just a button click. The problem arose with legacy thread pitches. In the beginning of the industrial revolution, the first lathes were set up to create threads. In Europe these lathes had metric sizes. As luck would have it the imperial fine and coarse threads turned out to have better properties than fine and coarse metric threads. A rusted imperial coarse thread bolt can be loosened while a metric bolt usually must by drilled out. A imperial fine thread bolt will break unlike an overtorqued metric fine thread bolt that strips before it breaks.
Metric fine threads are prone to stripping

Metric fine threads are prone to stripping

The imperial fine thread was invented by the Society of Automotive Engineers and is also called a SAE thread. They were looking for a thread that would not vibrate loose. A metric coarse thread is half way between a imperial fine and coarse thread. If it is perfectly tightened it will not vibrate loose. (US car mechanics had to purchase torque wrenches when metric bolts were adopted.) Most molds manufactured anywhere in the world use imperial coarse thread bolts. Companies cannot afford the expense of drilling fasteners every time they need to disassemble molds. The world conversion to metric is pretty much complete. It is possible that threads may be like pipe sizes. The world may continue to use the legacy imperial threads and pipe simply because they work better and the matching taps, fixtures, and related manufacturing equipment are already in place.

In the early days, when Microsoft was trying to displace Lotus, Timeline, Word Prefect, etc. they focused on interoperability. Once they became the dominate player they elected to create new file formats for Excel that could not be imported into Open Office. This may have worked for them if they had taken the time to verify that their newest version could successfully import legacy data. Companies which invested thousands of manhours in creating Excel files chose to continue to use the earlier version when the new release could not preserve the formatting. It is possible that Calc in Open office will never bother to write the code for importing the latest version of Excel. As a small fish caught in the turbulent format war water, my http://mileagetrakker.com application creates reports in the Excel 97 format.

Nail down your mileage deduction

Nail down your mileage deduction

Our users want compatibility. It does not matter whether they are using either version of Excel or Open Office Calc. The 97 format can transfer into any of them.

Inversion

Posted on by
Reply

Classic illusion flips from faces to vase by Brocken Inaglory

Classic illusion flips from faces to vase by Brocken Inaglory

As we focus in on our immediate objectives, the lesson we learn from classic illusions is that occasionally we need to step back and see the bigger picture. The most famous example of a figure–ground illusion is probably the faces–vase drawing that Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin described. Your mind can’t decide whether to focus on the white vase or the black faces.
Shigeo Shingo invented the concept of SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die) He correctly asserted that if a die change occurred fast enough, the manufacturing planners would not be tempted to build extra production to put into inventory to save die changes. People who only saw the black faces simply tried to increase the die change speed. Shingo correctly guided his followers to focus on the white vase. In most cases much of the die change can be done while the equipment is in production.
Demand charges for electricity work the same way. The size of the wires in the power grid and within the plant are related to the peak draw on the system. Significant savings occurs when the high power draw actions do not occur simultaneously. This is especially true in situations where the usage is approaching the maximum that the existing infrastructure can deliver. I happen to like coloring Excel spread sheets so that a quick glance confirms that all high power users are not active at the same time.
Colored charts add understanding to simple tables of numbers

Colored charts add understanding to simple
tables of numbers

Attention to detail made it possible to divert 100 of 450 amps to added hot oil heating units.
The same focus on only the black faces applies to my mileage trakker business. In start up mode our effort was aimed at tabulating the trips in IRS format so that our trakkers could qualify for the deduction which puts about $2000 in their pockets. It took a request by one of our users to help us see the white in addition to the black. Some business owners need to tabulate how long they are at the customer on a service call. Surprise – Surprise! This matches how long their car is in the customer parking lot. We are now beta testing a feature that logs the time at the customer.

Iteration

Posted on by
Reply

Advancing technology is a series of iterative steps

Advancing technology is a series of iterative steps

It no longer becomes possible to define completely the details of a project when you are pushing the technology envelope. With the Mercury space project, the leap was aggressive with massive public attention. The planners who arranged that successful effort, formalized the iterative approach to new product development. They found it necessary to move beyond trying to define the desired result at the beginning and progressing in “waterfall” fashion to completion. Using the iterative method that they formalized, the Mercury project was organized into a series of experimental steps. The results of each step’s planned test provided the information needed to progress further. Obviously some of the tests ended in failure as we have seen in the news. The latest SpaceX, Blue Orion, Challenger disasters that literally explode into the public consciousness come to mind. Neil Armstong was asked to indicate what he thought was the dangerous part of space flight. He indicated it was the time between entering and leaving the space capsule
The Chrysler Minivan actually has the same cargo capacity as was offered in the smallest full size van at the time. Achieving this feat is a good example of iteration in action. One of my car designers described the task as stuffing 10 lbs into a 5 lb box. We did not wish to give up the ability to stow a full size spare. Since changing a flat is such a pain in the butt, it is unlikely that a traveler with a flat in the wilds of Laos will appreciate our efforts until he is writing his memoirs.
Having a full size spare tire saves spending the night out in the wilds of Laos

Having a full size spare tire saves spending the
night out in the wilds of Laos


The basic challenge is that a full size tire did not fit between the rear axle and the rear bumper. Tough development tasks require superb executive planning. The advanced design team got the first kick at the can. They picked adding a kink into the axle. Fortunately planning a hand off to a second design team solves the issue of becoming attached to a mediocre solution simply because of pride in authorship. Offsetting the axle both down and forward proved to be the elegant solution. Having an overlap between the production design team and advance design team efforts mitigated the time lost by changing concept midstream. (We also got lucky because the kinked axel was the item that failed when the advance design was tested)
Iterative product development (in manufacturing we call this Kaizen) has emerged as the dominant strategy for launching software products. Following the tenants of lean startup, we launched http://mileagetrakker.com. A/B testing was used to tune our product so that the UX (user experience) is positive. Subsequent improvements are evaluated using the SCRUM approach where potential improvements are exposed to subsets of the user base. The first improvements that we implemented made more of an impact because diminishing returns sets in.
Iterative development illustration by Dutchguilder

Iterative development illustration by Dutchguilder

Warm and Fuzzy

Posted on by
Reply

Automation has replaced armies of clerical workers (the new pink collar workers)

Automation has replaced armies of clerical workers
(the new pink collar workers)


We all know the drill ” Thank you for calling Modern Company. If you know your party’s extension please dial it now. For sales dial 101, for service dial 102, for HR dial 103, for accounts receivable dial 104, for shipping dial 105, for scheduling dial 106 —- if you wish to hear the options again press 1″ Usually none of the listed extensions match our needs, so we pick one in desperation only to hear a recorded message “Your call is important to us, please call back when our operators are not busy.”
In today’s lean world, nobody has time to sit at their desk waiting for the phone to ring. If you look at the sea of desks they are mostly unoccupied. Many of the players are simultaneously sitting in teleconferences while answering the daily bombardment of 2 to 300 internal e-mails. This overload is unsustainable and the pendulum will swing back to add new controls. Back in era of large companies, the chain of command was expected to correctly filter the information flow. Sending communication to higher than your boss’s boss was not permitted.
It would be nice to think that an instruction manual would be sufficient to accomplish a simple installation like a computer display screen. In the industrial automation arena, equipment is expected to live 7 years with first rebuild giving another 7 years. When you are matching a new display screen to equipment and controls that are more than 10 years old, a generation miss match occurs. Usually a live local technician with many years experience is needed to resolve the problems, especially if the set-up is complicated by having a defective replacement display screen to start with. This is why we pay a premium to buy industrial display screens because warm and fuzzy help is usually needed to get the repair done. Even good live help, last week we lost three days of production sorting out the replacement of a dead computer display screen.
This is an opportunity that start-up companies can use to grow. Most customers want a warm and fussy feeling and react favorably when they are serviced by knowledgeable people who are not remotely located in a call center. The UX (User Experience) movement is all about having your development staff interact with a representative group of users. As we performed the www.mileagetrakker.com beta test we personally got to know all of the beta testers. Since most people learn by interacting with other people, it was natural for the www.mileagetrakker.com beta testers to acquire the knowledge that they needed. As we scale beyond the beta phase, we continue to test which of the introductory activities can be automated on the website and which training and set-up actions require personal involvement by the sales staff. Even though is is possible to accomplish all of the actions needed to acquire a Mileage Trakker device by interacting with the website, the vast majority will join us due to the activity of the sales staff.
Capture your full mileage deduction

Capture your full mileage deduction


The new battle ground in the marketplace will be establishing the correct balance between efficient computerized automation and warm and fuzzy human support. Monopoly power can force customers to fight with faceless computerized non service, but this jeopardizes the continuation of the company. The pendulum will swing back to creating new employment roles for people.

The Extra Mile and One Half

Posted on by
Reply

We all use milestones to measure our progress

We all use milestones to measure our progress


Those of us who actually go the extra mile know that you really have to travel a little bit farther than that to get the job done.
Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.” (Matthew 5:41, (NASB)) “impressment” allowed a Roman soldier to conscript a non Roman citizen to carry his equipment for one Roman mile (milion = 1,000 paces, about 1,611 yards)– no easy task considering a Roman soldier’s backpack could weigh upwards of 100 pounds (45.4 kg).
The concept of the extra mile applies heavily to quoting contract manufacturing. After you learn to quantify and price everything it takes to do a job, you discover that you also have to plan for the extra mile. This reflects the fact that everything will not go perfectly. Most industries have a multiplication factor before profit which is applied to the computed cost. This adjusted cost is a much more realistic value when the accounting is done at the end. This type of feedback loop is embedded in making a profit. It would not have been possible for me to turn around a few manufacturing companies without basing these factors on historical experience. The fact that all projects have built in inefficiency creates a lean consulting industry.
The volatile nature of employment these days causes many people to put in the extra mile on the highway in traffic jams. Not everyone clocks the extra mile willingly, as Jesus suggested, which is why we hear about road rage. extJA. Our daughter when she was young was stuck in traffic with her mother. She weighed in on the topic. “You know traffic has an end. You just have to go there.” Ah! Wisdom out the mouths of babes. For those of us who are unable to go to traffic’s end, we need to adjust to the longer commutes. Many people who drive for business find that the old approximate methods of estimating mileage for their expense reports miss some of the miles needed to make the actual trip. This is why people who choose to use a www.mileagetakkker.com device to automatically tabulate their trips in IRS format end up money ahead.

Global Positioning

Posted on by
Reply

Satellites used for glodal positioning circle the globe.

Satellites used for glodal positioning circle the globe.


As little children we are taught the story of Hansel and Gretel who are faced with the challenge of finding their way home in an unfamiliar woods. As we all remember they discovered that pebbles as signs along the way create a map to follow. This lesson went to our hearts and the automobile clubs led the charge to install street and route signs at every fork in the road. Navigation using signs is a workable method as long as it is daytime and the weather cooperates. I can remember my mother turning on the porch light as a beacon to guide out of town visitors to our house.
Safe travel has long been based on line of sight position references

Safe travel has long been based on line of sight
position references


Lighthouses have long been used as beacons to guide sailors safely back to port. During the second world war a concerted effort was made to improve on visual position references. The British development of radar branched into the creation of LORAN.(short for LOng RANge navigation) It was not until the introduction of solid state electronics in the 1970s that marine and military use of LORAN became common. This system used a grid of land radio beacons to calculate the position of ships and planes. Most of the positioning systems still in use today are an evolution of the original LORAN. The position of a GPS receiver is calculated by timing the transmission from 3 or more transmitters in known locations. The measured position accuracy improves if the transmitters are closer or there is fewer obstructions. This is why we primarily use satellite or cell phone based GPS today.
I would like to report that our GPS navigation systems are infallible in their calculation of location. Even though they work most of the time, certain types of obstructions such as parking garages and metal buildings block or reflect the signals. Applications that require continuous guidance, such as the autonomous vehicles that I helped design for warehouse delivery, have additional local beacons to provide sufficiently accurate location. This also overcomes the intentional dithering that the US military adds to the satellite GPS signals. Other useful devices that use GPS locations, such as my www.mileagetrakker.com ,have an embedded workaround that makes the temporary loss of location user invisible. Even though this level of coding is complicated, the user experience is greatly enhanced.
Capture your full mileage deduction

Capture your full mileage deduction


Many of the things that we are trying to achieve are related to our current location. It is not surprising that some of the most successful automation effectively utilizes embedded GPS calculations.

OBD II – On Board Diagnostics

Posted on by
Reply
Modern car repair is guided by IoT on board diagnostics

Modern car repair is guided by IoT on board diagnostics

It is not surprising that the general public is unaware of the user invisible computers running their vehicles. It is a testament to the skill of the automotive engineering community that computer controls were adopted with the care and testing which enabled them to remain hidden in the background. On Board Diagnostics were included within these controls due to the magnanimous donation of thousands of hours to industry committees who hammered out the standards. Access to the “big data” is just the starting point. Many iterations of testing and development are needed to weed out the “false positive” alarms that shake our confidence in the “code”. We evolved from OBD 1 through OBD 1.5 to the OBD II standard that came into effect in 1996. The upgrade to the standardization of OBD II was the result of emission requirements but the industry implementation included useful features such as common connection hardware, standardized diagnostic trouble codes, and access to the computers.
Vehicle computer controls are very sophisticated these days. Artificial intelligence in the form of mapping is used to keep up with the vehicle processes in real time and adjust the response to accomplish better outcomes like lower emissions, better fuel economy, traction control, straight line stopping and smoother ride.

Real time controls choose their actions using a map like this NASA map which shows where people live.

Real time controls choose their actions using a map like this NASA map which shows where people live.

New values are continuously stored in a digital map which is used to avoid computing from scratch when the same conditions occur in the future.
The embedded On Board Diagnostics are able to spot failures which are above even my talent and vision. More important than that is that they continuously track simple failures
like disconnected wires. My college roomate electrical engineer, stated that there are no electrical failures. There are only mechanical failures. Electricity will flow if you give it a path. On Board Diagnostics is like having a mechanic who rides with you every mile of the way watching for even the simple failures. Nothing is more frustrating than having an intermittent problem that clears up every time you schedule an appointment with the mechanic.
As an automotive engineer and trained auto mechanic, I championed the display of the diagnostic trouble codes in addition to the “idiot light” on the dash panel. Now that I have seen this IoT application evolve, I realize that simply displaying the diagnostic trouble code number (some cars use the odometer display to do this currently) is of marginal usefulness compared to simultaneously providing the technical data and links like YouTube instructional video related to the indicated code. Applications such as my www.mileagetrakker.com grow in the marketplace because most car users also need lots of actionable related information, like the nearby location of appropriate repair shops.
Capture your full mileage deduction

Capture your full mileage deduction


The IoT has emerged into the marketplace in true “overnight success” fashion. Volkswagen brought out the first on board computer with scanning capability in 1968. The car repair industry was disrupted and gas stations with repair bays were replaced by convenience stores. In the 1940’s and 50’s tape driven digital servo motor controls were added to drive the motions of milling machines. CNC machining centers (and their intranet linked CAD and cutter path generation and management software) now dominate, displacing most Bridgeport milling machines. (And the Bridgeport company itself) In 1968 Bedford Associates brought out the first PLC (now Modicon) for GM. As a result, historic relay industrial controls have been replaced by PLC computer systems with their embedded intranet links.

Will we ever see the first disruptive Internet of Things success? Now that I have seen the security agencies complain that encryption is blocking interception of ISIS phone conversations, my prediction is that it will arrive as an extension of the Intranet of Things. Most IoT applications, like home security, require that any intranet extension onto the web includes the emerging communication encryption.

Kludge

Posted on by
Reply
Treasure is camouflaged in the digital jungle

Treasure is camouflaged in the digital jungle

kludge
[klooj]
noun – Computer Slang
1. a software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task.

*definition from Dictionary.com

Whoever came up with this term must have been assigned to marry legacy IoT (Internet of Things) digital controls. Lots of ones and zeros show on the logic analyzer, with obscure or forgotten protocols for interpreting what they mean. In the arms race to stay ahead of the newest start-up, many of the companies who built the previous generation equipment with embedded internet communication no longer exist. However, even the first internet connected device is still a part of our IoT infrastructure. At the blinding communication speed of two bits per week, the transmitter shuts off the water feed pump every Sunday when the water tower is full.

We take running water out of our taps for granted

We take running water out of our taps for granted

I used to worry about terrorists gaining control of our infrastructure using the internet. It is theoretically possible to inflict some serious damage and injury. My concern was based on the fact that early IoT devices have very little access protection. Now that I have integrated some legacy systems I realize the lack of standardization will be our saving grace. It is next to impossible to apply experimentally the right combination of ones and zeros without a guide.
I was discussing the evolution of CNC position encoders with the technician who was upgrading the control on one of our CNC machining centers. In mold making, the cutter path software that converts 3D models (3D printing) into physical shapes, originally used a layer by layer contour line approach. We would like to use the more modern climb milling software because it eliminates the contour lines. (and the hours of hand draw polishing to remove them) The upgraded control will position X Y and Z at high speed instead of just X and Y which is all the contour line method requires. The embedded computer in each axis position encoder sends a high speed serial data stream including error correcting bits back to the control. This is a far cry from the first GE (now Fanuc) CNC control retrofitted to a Buffalo milling machine that I first programmed – yes, there is still a lot of legacy stuff in operation out there. This control also had position encoders without the local embedded computer. It only lost about 2500 count per shift (about 1/4 inch of position) and it came with a switch to shut off the Z axis so that you did not mill too deep. We evolved through resolvers and glass scales and back to a smart encoder. Don’t expect to do “big data” analysis of this type of IoT real time data stream. Bad things happen if the transmission of position is interrupted.
Who will bridge the genetation gap?

Who will bridge the genetation gap?


On the hardware side it is very convenient to connect the 10/100 port of my laptop to the ethernet switch. In my latest control I added ethernet cables so that it can be used in convenient locations without exposing it to the open internet. The generation gap became painfully obvious on the software side. The desire of the Windows operating system coders to download daily changes exceeds the ability of any custom low volume application software creator to keep up. We are finding that the latest version of custom application software is obsolete before it is sold. In the short term we will keep the systems synchronized by isolating them from the internet once we solve the inter-connectivity issues. This solution does not work for every IoT software mismatch issue. In my mileage trakker www.mileagetrakker.com IoT connected car application, it is necessary to have a staff who continuously monitors the functionality of the links and keeps up with interfacing with each model and car maker as they evolve. This becomes part of the monthly charge which enables our trakkers to obtain a couple thousand dollars in annual savings. Many of my mileage trakker competitors have gone out of business because they got caught continuously rewriting their cell phone based code in order to keep up with a rapidly changing software platform.
The IoT is evolving like the power grid. New IoT applications emerge based on the cost and performance drivers. Each implementer chooses a variation that matches the application without regard for the broader inter-connectivity issues. This will generate employment for the people with the STEM skills to link users to the vast data pool.

Connectivity

Posted on by
Reply

Humans are all interconnected

Humans are all interconnected


The first long distance communication link was actually digital. The telegraph replaced flags, smoke signals and mirrors as the first reliable long distance link.
A telegraph key and sounder

A telegraph key and sounder

My dad’s best friend was a HAM radio enthusiast who worked for NASA. As a young child, I remember watching a teletypewriter translate radioed Morse Code and print at 20 words per minute. I thought the transmission was coming from Mars. Funny on today’s scale, in that this transmission was at the blinding baud rate of 8 bits/second. (still faster than you could send and receive Morse Code using the key.) The general public never wanted to learn Morse code so they migrated to the telephone, radio and television. My parents cottage / retirement home is on Lake Erie in a small village called Saybrook.
A lineman on a telephone pole.

A lineman on a telephone pole.


No it was no longer necessary to climb the pole to answer the phone. But, I can remember when a live operator came on the line to ask you what number you were calling from for billing. For us non-residents, it is mandatory to keep the cell phone plugged into the car charger so that you have enough broadcast power to last though a normal phone call. I am not surprised that Saybrook was a Finnish community. The equally sparse Finnish landscape prompted a Finnish company Telenokia in 1991 to invent the digital GSM G2 cell phone protocol. A digital link, initially at 40,000 bits/sec (the old telephone modems are at 48,000 bits/sec) replaced the G1 analog cell phone networks. This digital strategy made simultaneous voice and data transmission possible. We quickly adopted this communication link. Connected car services such as my IoT (Internet of Things) http://mileagetrakker.com automated milege report generation system became possible. Mileage Trakker even works in places like Saybrook which isn’t scheduled to upgrade beyond G2 cell coverage until next year.
Capture your full mileage deduction

Capture your full mileage deduction


Humans are funny creatures. In the near future we will all be transported by self-driving vehicles. I suspect that the resulting traffic jams will cause us to want enough cell bandwidth to synchronize the flow.
Computer control will stuff the roads

Computer control will stuff the roads

This is very similar to the task of keeping track of Kiva robots scurrying around a warehouse. Very high capacity “blanket” WIFI systems at 450,000,000 bits/sec by Extricom http://www.extricom.com are the minimum needed for this task. The actual bandwidth we will want is probably higher, in that it takes 32,000,000 bits per second, to transmit TV images to entertain us during the trip. We are watching all of our communication links converge into a single interconnected system.