It was well after 2 a.m. one night in Nashville, when ESX attendees staying at the Nashville Renaissance Hotel had  business-reply mailers from Telguard, a division of Telular Corp., silently stuffed under their hotel room doors. The mailers explained the details of Telguard’s new 3G/4G Upgrade Incentive Program and served as the actual instruments for applying to the program.

 The Upgrade Incentive Program rewards dealers with up to $25 when they replace any manufacturer’s (including Telguard’s) installed 2G cellular alarm communicator with one of Telguard’s solutions for 3G/4G networks. The company  said its program will incentivize dealers to begin making a transition to 3G/4G products today, during planned service calls or at other convenient times. This approach, Telguard stated in a press release, allows dealers to eliminate dedicated truck rolls and other unnecessary costs.

Telguard is pledging $5 million towards the program.

“There are three barriers that make it difficult for dealers to adopt a new technology that will survive the 2G Sunset. Telguard has been working to address all of them since last year,” said Shawn Welsh, vice president of marketing and business development, Telular. “We eliminated the first barrier — habit — by seamlessly evolving our complete line of 2G products to 3G/4G, making it impossible for our dealers to make a poor technology choice. The second barrier — price — was eliminated by offering our 3G/4G products for the same price as 2G solutions. Now, with our Upgrade Incentive Program we can help overcome the third barrier — procrastination — with a multimillion-dollar fund to offset costs for dealers who choose to proactively upgrade their customers.”

Using the self-mailers, dealers attach the SIM card from the 2G product they remove from the field. It simply sticks in place. They write the 10-digit serial number of the new Telguard 3G/4G device, and fill in some other information before mailing the card. Dealers who participate in the program will receive their incentive credits on their next cellular service invoice.

Telguard said (at press time) that its postage-paid incentive claim forms would be available at all distributors beginning in early July, and that they will be included in all Telguard 3G/4G product boxes starting in August. More details about the program and a printable version of the mailer, which will require postage, can be downloaded from www.Telguard.com/Upgrade.