Patent ID: 8010058

Claim:
A system for providing communications for a container monitoring system, the system comprising: a first communications element for providing communications from at least one monitored container to a monitoring station; a second communications element comprising a meteor burst communications device for transmitting data from the monitored container to the central monitoring station via a meteor burst channel, wherein the second communications element is configured to provide an alternative transmission path between the monitored container and the monitoring station; and a control element which controls the first communications element and the second communications element, wherein the control element is configured to cause the first communications element and second communications element to operate in a low power mode such that the first communications element is placed in an inactive state and the meteor burst communications device is initially set to a mode to only receive incoming transmissions and further wherein the control element is configured to switch the first communications element to an active state based on the receipt of a wake-up message by the meteor burst communications device.