TeleNav reportedly announced the main results of a recent poll it has conducted together with the College Parents of America are that a fair percentage of fresh college students do not feel confident about finding their way in and around a new college environment be it in proximity to their home or far away, and that parents are well advised to use its GPS place-locating solutions that are well suited for mobile hand held devices.

"Parents need to understand that their children may not feel comfortable or confident finding their way around their new environment as they begin the college experience," said James Boyle, president of College Parents of America. "The results of this poll suggest that parents should spend just as much time preparing their children to navigate their new community as they do getting them ready for the classroom. Students may not raise this concern with parents during the very stressful days leading up to their move to campus, so parents should take a proactive approach to ensuring their child has the tools to find their way in new surroundings."

TeleNav (News - Alert) is making a special back to school offer of its TeleNav GPS Navigator that is compatible with hundreds of mobile devices, for a special price of $89 per year for unlimited use or pay $10 per month after a free 30 day trial period.

Company officials say to obtain the promotional offer to use the promotion code “Back2School2009” when purchasing TeleNav GPS Navigator from TeleNav's Web site, and said this special promo will be available through September 2009 only.

Recently, Frost & Sullivan reportedly conferred AT&T (News - Alert) Navigator, which is powered by TeleNav, with the Product of the Year award titled, “2009 Consumer Navigation Application of the Year.”

That report claimed the TeleNav-powered GPS navigation solution was selected because of its rich variety of features that included speech recognition to encourage non-use of hands while driving, dynamic three dimensional maps for multiple angle viewing, and automated alerts for vehicular bottlenecks, traffic disruptions, or taking the wrong route.

Other features that reportedly caught the imagination of adjudicating panellists, official sources say, are its route rectification capability, computing and updating the approximate time of arrival based on vehicle speed and network feed-back, one touch activation for pedestrian mode, intelligent voice-based suggestions synchronized with on screen visuals depending on city and state, and, importantly, it can be loaded on most hand-held Smartphone devices.

A few more features include on-line Yellow pages access; anytime Wi-Fi hotspot, ATM and restaurant pin-pointing; and helping out with the lowest possible fuel rate within a few mile radius; and, value-add guidance during poor visibility or disorientation scenarios such as electrical grid blackouts at night, blizzards and displaced landmarks as happened because of Hurricane Katrina.

Additional value for customers reportedly comes by way of Bluetooth audio capability and interactions via U.S. English, U.K. English, Italian, German, and Spanish languages; a global edition that has detailed coverage of mostly all Western European countries, Complete North America, the U.S. Virgin islands, and six Chinese cities – Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang and Qinhuangdao.

College Parents of America reportedly has developed a list of tips for parents that may help ease students' stress as they head off to school: Arm your child with GPS navigation technology so they can easily find their way to important locations such as emergency providers; On move in day or before, be sure to schedule some time to drive your child around the community, locating emergency providers, the nearest grocery store and other important locations; Create a "lost" kit that can be placed in your child's vehicle consisting of paper maps of the community, an easy reference list of important numbers and locations, a prepaid mobile phone and a prepaid gas card; Taking the tone of an experienced traveler and not a concerned parent, provide basic navigation advice such as identifying the major roadways in the community and their direction in relation to your child's new home; and, Before saying goodbye to your child, simply ask them if they feel confident in their ability to find their way around town.