Navteq traffic vs Clear Channel traffic

If you search you will find numerous discussions.

That's a very subjective question and the biggest factor is the quality of the coverage in YOUR specific area.

I have both services and I'm about 25mi SW of Boston. This is what I'd call the "fringe area" of Boston coverage and where I generally drive, neither service is very reliable. It's sort of like cell phone service where there are just a lot of places with no-service. Of the 2 traffic services, I personally feel that Clear Channel is far superior to Navteq as (around here) it's available on about 8-10 local FM frequencies and Navteq has only ever shown up on 2 (according to my GPS).

Having a traffic receiver has helped me on a few occasions. It's a neat feature but it's noting to brag about and certainly doesn't live up to the advertizing hype. Can't say it's worth the money.

The other interesting thing is that it will sometimes warn you of a traffic slowdown or jam and give you the opportunity to "avoid" the situation by suggesting another route. But caution... it may send you on an alternate route that is even worse (traffic wise) than the one your on because it doesn't happen to be monitoring those particular roads.

If your often traveling in an area with good coverage, it might really be helpfull.

Happy Shopping!

I'm leaning towards CC...looks like better reception in my area....does CC offer Incident data and traffic flow data?
Does Navteq?

For those that are interested:

http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/500,000-subscribers-for-Clear...

Here's some info I compiled on my own experience using the two providers, Clear Channel & Navteq...

*The unit used to obtain the following info was a nuvi 765T. Other units such as the nuvi 7x0 series will likely display different info.*

With the unit powered on, connected to the GTM xx receiver and receiving traffic:

1. Go to the map screen
2. Touch the "speed" display to go to the Trip Computer screen
3. Touch and hold the large round speedometer gauge for approx 6-7 seconds
4. Touch the "next" button to advance to the "GTM Info" page.

The left-hand column under "FM Table" displays the available stations/channels that are broadcasting traffic data and that are seen by the GTM xx. The list displayed is of stations/channels your unit is able to select from. Here's an example of what you'll see (will vary according to your area, traffic provider & subscription):

TTN-LAX3 103.5 6/6 $

Description of above (AFAIK):
TTN = Total Traffic Network, Navteq = Navteq
LAX3 = Region name (the numerical value will change)
103.5 = Station/channel frequency
6 = Station/channel ID (6: TTN, 7: Navteq, 12: unknown)
6 = Location
$ = Identified/verified/locked stations/channels usable by GTM xx

You can also see what station/channel is currently being used for traffic data on the previous "GTM Status" page in the right-hand column under which will look like:

Channel: 152(102.7)

This will change according to which station/channel is selected from the FM Table list on the "GTM Info" page. At bootup, the FM Table is scanned and (I believe) the most powerful station/channel is selected by the system to provide the traffic data. I also believe (but have not verified) that the system is able to switch to a different station/channel automatically when the signal goes below a certain level and/or another stronger station/channel is available in the FM Table. The FM Table is also re-scanned periodically (you'll see the FM Table being refreshed) but I'm unsure of the exact frequency.

If you have two traffic subscriptions on your GTM xx as I do (original Navteq Lifetime subscription unit with additional Clear Channel Lifetime subscription) the system will decide which subscription is used for traffic data and is NOT selectable by the user in any way that I know of. The first & strongest signal will be the deciding factor on which is used. However, if the stronger stations/channels consistently belong to one provider, the system will purge the FM Table of the weaker stations/channels. For example with my GTM 20, Clear Channel is dominant in my area...I seldom, if ever, now see any Navteq stations/channels in my FM Table where I used to see them quite frequently. And yes, both subscriptions are indeed valid, usable and seen by the system.
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Additional info: Clear Channel/TTN vs Navteq traffic (Los Angeles area)

In the Los Angeles/Riverside, CA area, I get the following stations transmitting traffic data:

Clear Channel Lifetime (Los Angeles)
92.3 94.1 98.7 99.1 102.7 103.5 104.3 105.3 (8 stations)

Clear Channel Lifetime (San Bernardino/Riverside)
92.3 94.1 98.7 99.1 99.9 102.7 103.5 104.3 105.3 (9 stations)

Navteq Lifetime ad-based (Los Angeles)
91.9 94.9 97.3 100.3 105.9 (5 stations)

Navteq Lifetime ad-based (San Bernardino/Riverside)
100.3 (1 station)

You can clearly see that Clear Channel is the clear winner as far as transmitting stations are concerned, at least in my area and I find that it's well worth adding the Clear Channel lifetime subscription in addition to the GTM 20's Navteq subscription just for the additional and wider coverage.

If you'll be using a Navteq only GTM 20 with a 760, you may in fact need to purchase the Clear Channel lifetime subscription to add to the GTM 20 since the 760 has no means to display the ads that the Navteq subscription relies on. I am not sure of this because I am running an old firmware version (v3.20) on my 760. When I used it with my Navteq only GTM 20 (before adding a Clear Channel lifetime subscription), traffic data was very sporadic, incomplete and definitely not working correctly. After adding the Clear Channel lifetime subscription, traffic was verified working correctly. Newer firmware versions (4.xx) for the 760 may have fixed this but I really do not know. Maybe a 760 user with firmware v4.xx with access to a Navteq only GTM 20 can comment on this.

You may get wider coverage using Clear Channel but this will depend on your particular area (Clear Channel is -much- better in my area).
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Additional info regarding multiple subscriptions on one GTM 20 (4/8/2009)

You can purchase a Clear Channel lifetime subscription and apply it to a Navteq only GTM 20. I have done just that on the GTM 20 that came with my 765T. Two subscriptions are on the unit, Clear Channel & Navteq.

You can also purchase a Navteq only GTM 20 direct from Garmin and add a Clear Channel subscription to that. Yes, this really is a Navteq GTM 20; read the fine print and note the price compared to the Clear Channel GTM 20.

Navteq GTM 20 - $119.99 https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=36249
Clear Channel GTM 20 - $214.27 https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=403

You can also purchase a Navteq subscription and apply it to a Clear Channel GTM 20. That does not make much sense though unless coverage for your area is better using Navteq. The system is auto-sensing (with no option to the user as to which subscription/provider will be used) and will choose the provider with the strongest overall signal if you have multiple subscriptions.

See https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=268 for available traffic subscriptions.

[didn't bother to quote the whole message from above]

I have a a 750 with GTM-20 and I concur with everthing above (from Dorkus), even the diagnostic screens and operation are virtually identical as best I can recal from memory. I have the 4.6 firmware in my 750 and 5.3 in the GTM.

As a datapoint: I bought my GTM-20 on eBay a few month back and it suprisingly came with a lifetime Navteq subscription ehich is not add based and worked just fine. I later added the Clear Channel service.

I read somewhere on the web that the adds can be defeated by removing a database file stored on the the Nuvi. I have no idea if it actually works and for the life of me, I can't find where I read it. It was in some forum that just showed up in a Google search for something not specifically related. I'll post the info if I come across it again.

Good info. My unit came with the pre-installed free ad-based Navteq Lifetime which did NOT work with either my 750 or 760 (firmware v3.1 & v3.2). If a purchased Navteq Lifetime subscription works on your 760, it's likely because of two reasons:

1. The paid-for Navteq Lifetime is truly ad-free and thus works on the 7x0 units which cannot display the ads.
2. Your later v4.60 firmware vs my earlier v3.1/v3.2 is the reason it's working. Firmware v4.60 specifically mentions:

* Added support for two traffic providers.

I'm not about to upgrade my 7x0 units to 4.6 to find out for sure though...

The Navteq ads can be deleted from the nuvi temporarily but AFAIK, cannot be disabled. The ads are stored in x:/Garmin/Poi/ddb/RDS_LBA.ddb
Upon deletion, they will no longer be displayed. However, once you are again connected to Navteq Traffic, the ads will again be downloaded to the unit and stored in the same folder.

I'm going to attempt something on this and will report back in a couple of days on my findings.

What I did: backed up the RDS_LBA.ddb file. Created a blank text file in the ddb directory, named it RDS_LBA.ddb, and gave it the attribute of Read Only.

That's a great idea. I'd like to, but cannot test it since my Clear Channel subscription pretty much "disables" my Navteq subscription since the system is auto-sensing and uses the subscription that's stronger, with more stations available in your area.

Be sure & let us know if it works.

Didn't work. I left my USB cable at work so I can't check my Garmin to see what took place with the RDS_LBA.ddb file. Garmin reported the usual 3 minute traffic delay on my way home and once I arrived I was shown an advertisement for Ramada Inn.

Appears Garmin simply deleted the read-only file and created a new one.

Thanks for the info in this thread. I'm switching from XM traffic/weather to FM Traffic (been trying it out for a few weeks). It looks to me like FM Traffic is giving me a little more detail in what's going on (more construction areas listed, for example, on local roads).

I was wondering if you could subscribe to multiple traffic services and this thread gave me the answer and I found it interesting reading the observation in how the GPS seems to handle it.

For anyone who doesn't have the traffic services, I highly recommend it. About 3 weeks ago it saved me from being stuck on the Florida Turnpike due to a semi fire and the road being shut down. Had I not had the traffic service I would have gotten on the road and been stuck, or, if they had it blocked, I would have been dealing with the traffic at the blockage. Instead my GPS immediately informed me of the closure and routed me around - I go through without any slowdown.

Anyway, I started comparing Navteq to Clear Channel (and just for grins compared that with XM) and if you get both then you have coverage in every place that has traffic info.

For example, I travel to Knoxville and Chattanooga but live in Atlanta. Now, I'm covered in Atlanta with Clear Channel (my original subscription) and I see that it's nice that Chattanooga is included. Sometimes I travel up to Knoxville which is Navteq only. As I started looking at it further I saw that, while there's redundancy between the services, the 'filling in of the gaps' for those odd little cities is kind of nice too, especially when it's just a one-time charge. If I'm driving and there's some major incident I could avoid the one-time charge of $50 is pretty minor long-term wise.

I figure I also get the benefit of approaching a city covered by both and I'd bet that there would be areas where you get signal from one but not the other and you may have some traffic situation ahead of you that you'd otherwise have missed.

Anyway, to me traffic is definitely worth it if you live in one of the covered cities. If you find yourself out wandering a bit to different cities then it seems worth it to me to add the second subscription on top of it so that you're covered no matter what.

I just want to add:

Having a traffic receiver doesn't stop rush hour. It's main benefit (well, to me, having used it over the years) is when there's some incident on your route that you really want to avoid.

For example, your commute may be an hour. Each day if you look at the traffic data you'll see it go to yellow and then to red (if you're in a flow-monitoring area) but you know that it's like that every day. There really isn't much you can do about that. Your GPS will show you the congestion icon - you can click on it but you know the score. If there's an accident, you'll get that icon instead. Now it's worth investigating. Click the icon and usually (and this has really improved over the years) you'll get some text like, 'Minor accident - on right shoulder,' or (worse) 'Major accident - 3 right lanes blocked'. This is useful in that you can decide, "Minor? I'll just plow through," or "Major? Hmmm... Maybe I'll look for an alternate or, if that's no good, at least I know to get over to the left hand lanes."

That, to me, is the big benefit of the traffic receivers. The whole point of the GPS units and traffic receivers is to tell you what you don't know. You know the roads around you. You know when they change. It's the roads/businesses you don't know about that makes it worth getting the map updates. Same thing is true with traffic - you know the traffic patterns on your commute. You probably even know which weeks of the year are lighter due to holidays and school schedules. What you don't know is that there may have been an accident that's large enough to avoid.

Another thing to add about the traffic is that for it to be useful, you really need to tell the GPS each time you get into the car what you are doing so that it will alert you for traffic on your route. If you're going around the corner to the store - well, you don't have to do that - that's silly. Daily commutes, even though you know the way, really are helped by telling the GPS, "Go to work/home," and letting it parse the traffic data along the way.

I'd also recommend that you tell your GPS to not avoid traffic. Maybe it has changed with more recent firmware (I haven't looked into it) but it used to be that if you had 'Avoid Traffic' turned on it would actively avoid traffic but not necessarily intelligently. It would see traffic on the interstate (say it had slowed to 'yellow' which was 40-50MPH) and route you around it when it would have made more sense to just keep you on the interstate and avoid the surface streets/traffic lights. I much prefer just having it alert me with 'Traffic Ahead' and give me the icon to let me review what's coming up. That way I can make the call of whether I want to just drive through it or if I really should look for an alternate route and, at that point, it'll let you detour around individual incidents if you like which is really handy.

Editing again as I thought of one other thing: The traffic info isn't going to be there if the accident just happened - it takes time for it to be reported and then be broadcast. Likewise, if an accident was just cleared up your GPS may very well still be reporting it although the seemed to have gotten better about this (in Atlanta at least) with having incidents time out - like you'll see 'Accident - scheduled to be cleared by 1:00PM'. Anyway, just throwing this out there so that you don't run into the 'I passed by that spot and there was nothing there!'-issue or the 'I saw nothing on the GPS about that accident!'-issue.

It's not 100% but it's still pretty good and a lot better than it used to be.

I have no idea which traffic service my Nuvi is using. I bought my Nuvi from a friend and he had both CCT and Navteq. Going in the diagnostic screen only shows the channel (FM) but no other indicators to show which channel I may be on.

Is there a screen shot that shows what to look for? BTW, I checked online on Navteq's traffic site and TTN (CCN)and neither of the online versions match what the GPS picks up.

You may be able to find it under Settings->Traffic->Subscriptions

On mine (not a Nuvi) it says:
- Total Traffic Network
- Traffic Subscription (or something like that which is horribly generic)
- Traffic Subscription (same as above)

The Total Traffic Network is Clear Channel. The generic traffic subscription is Navteq.

I assume MSN would show up as something like MSN Direct.

I'm not sure how the free services would show, though.

I have a Navteq GTM-20 lifetime plugged into my 760 which replaced the original traffic receiver and the MSN Direct receiver that I used previously and in Montreal it works just fine.

I think I might be confused about something. I own a 765T (which obviously comes with the free lifetime NAVTEQ traffic GTM-20.)

I just purchased the Clear Channel TTN subscription via the Garmin website. I activated it using the instructions, and the unit now has both traffic networks listed. I then purged the list of FM stations the unit had already built up so that it could start fresh.

Why would I still be getting ads? I'm totally frustrated, as 1/2 the reason I bought this was so I could have my unit advertisement-free.

Didn't I read multiple times that if you purchase one of the lifetime subscriptions, that the ads would then be eradicated?

Pardon my ignorance,
Jeff

The ads may still be cached on the unit...

The Navteq Traffic ads are stored on the nuvi in x:\Garmin\Poi\ddb folder. Delete the folder and the ads should be gone. They will again reappear as the ads are again (if they are) downloaded via the free Navteq Traffic subscription.

You may still have problems because you purchased Clear Channel but Navteq was free. I could see where you'd be normally getting Clear Channel FM stations (traffic) but, once in a while, you'd still be getting the odd Navteq free (ad-supported) information.

If it doesn't go away in a few months a lifetime subscription to Navteq may fix it (which really sucks since you just subscribed to Clear Channel).

I'd just like to update everyone on my experience with this. Brad, your hypothesis was indeed correct.

I called Garmin Support today to ask them about this issue. For the record, buying a Clear Channel subscription when you have a free lifetime NAVTEQ subscription which came built-in to a GTM-20 (ie- any GTM-20 which came with one of the units with 'T' in the model number) *WILL NOT* get rid of the ads.

When I asked about why people have been reporting otherwise, they told me that the only way that could occur is if the Clear Channel service is the one which is being used due to a stronger signal. So it looks like the reason certain people have never gotten the ads to pop up again since adding a TTN paid subscription is simply because their unit has only been accessing Clear Channel since.

So my aforementioned scenario is actually correct; when the unit is accessing the NAVTEQ-based free traffic, even with a purchased Clear Channel subscription, the ads will still appear. It just so happens that in my area of Denver, the NAVTEQ feed seems to be the stronger signal.

The solution? The only way to TRULY get rid of the ads with the free NAVTEQ subscription is to add the PAID NAVTEQ subscription instead. Luckily, Garmin Support was very helpful, and they supplied me with a paid NAVTEQ code to add to my account due to the misinformation.

Now, lo and behold, the ads are gone. Thanks for the help, folks!

Glad they helped you out.

I've dealt with Garmin a few times on some confusing issues like which map to buy and if I bought an update map when I really needed the base map - stupid stuff that's hard to figure out on their website - or, at least, not clear. Anyway, each and everytime I've dealt with them they've been very accommodating/understanding. I've never walked away from them thinking, "Wow - they just stuck me with this crap I can't use." Sometimes they go so far as to give you something more than what you've paid for.

I mentioned in a different thread how I liked the idea of dual subs just for more coverage in some cities/towns that are on one instead of the other. One thing I've noticed here in Atlanta is that sometimes the data will change in the traffic-list as a result of the dual sub. It'll get the traffic info off Clear Channel for instance, and then tell me about the problems on my route, but then it'll lose signal for Clear Channel and seek out the next one and sometimes land on Navteq which has slightly different traffic info for my area so sometimes incidences will tend to toggle on a trip or their delay will change. The info is still there, for the most part (Clear Channel seems to have a bit more info for construction areas) but it can be a little weird/annoying (like mildly - you have to be looking for it).

I had received this quote from one of my friends, I thought I will share it with you.
I am, however, concerned with the "lifetime traffic" advertisement since MSN is discontinuing their service on 12/31/2011. This means no more traffic on Jan 1 2012.

Yes - MSN Direct is being shutdown in Jan 2012.

I think most (if not all) units which have MSN can be switched over to FM traffic (you'd have to buy the cable and subscription, though).

what happen to those folks who bought lifetime Traffic from MSN..?

I would have thought this possible.

Subscribe to Navteq Traffic (lifetime is $50). Ads go away.