TomTom to replace RDS/TMC receivers

Since September last year, owners of the TomTom GO 510, 710 and 910 have had the option of receiving free traffic information via TMC (Traffic Message Channel). For this, a separate RDS/TMC receiver needed to be purchased and connected to the mount of the GO. For many people this worked well, but some had problems…

Practice

In practice it seemed that in some cases, the traffic info is downloaded very slowly or not at all, which led to a lot of frustration. Fortunately, for the affected users, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Today, TomTom has acknowledged the problem, and will soon offer every dissatisfied customer the chance to trade his or her faulty TMC antenna in for an improved version.

Official response

This is the official reaction TomTom has sent us:

"The TomTom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver was designed to provide seamless integration of RDS-TMC traffic information with the user-interface of the TomTom GO, providing customers with the best traffic experience on the market.

Through listening to valuable customer feedback, however, it has come to our attention that in some cases the RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver does not live up to our customers' expectations. TomTom has taken feedback very seriously and customers who experience problems will be offered a replacement of their RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver, a new version of which will feature improved performance and which we strive to have available Q2 2007."

Dissatisfied owners of a TomTom RDS/TMC receiver should, at first, report their problem to TomTom's Customer Support. There they will decide whether the receiver is really malfunctioning and needs to be replaced. If this is the case, these customers names will be put onto a list and they will be automatically notified when the new receiver becomes available. TomTom expects the replacement antennas to start shipping in the second quarter of 2007.