Connected and Autonomous Car Revolution

Last week we had the Automotive and Transport SIG event in Cambridge Wireless. There is already some good writeup on that event here and here. In this post my interest in looking at the technologies discussed.

R&S (who were the sponsors) gave their introduction presentation quite well highlighting the need and approaches for the connected car. He also introduced the IEEE 802.11p to the group.

As per Wikipedia, "IEEE 802.11p is an approved amendment to the IEEE 802.11 standard to add wireless access in vehicular environments (WAVE), a vehicular communication system. It defines enhancements to 802.11 (the basis of products marketed as Wi-Fi) required to support Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) applications. This includes data exchange between high-speed vehicles and between the vehicles and the roadside infrastructure in the licensed ITS band of 5.9 GHz (5.85-5.925 GHz). IEEE 1609 is a higher layer standard based on the IEEE 802.11p."

Back in December, Dr. Paul Martin did an equally useful presentation in the Mobile Broadband SIG and his presentation is equally relevant here as he introduced the different terms live V2X, V2i, V2V, V2P, etc. I have embedded his presentation below:

Roger Lanctot from Strategy Analytics, gave us some interesting facts and figures. Being based in the US, he was able to give us the view of both US as well as Europe. According to him, “LTE is the greatest source of change in value proposition and user experience for the customer and car maker. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC and satellite connectivity are all playing a role, but LTE deployment is the biggest wave sweeping the connected car, creating opportunities for new technologies and applications.” His officially released presentation is embedded below (which is much smaller than his presentation on that day.

There were also interesting presentations that I have not embedded but other may find useful. One was from Mike Short, VP of Telefonica and the other was from Dr. Ireri Ibarra of MIRA.

The final presentation by Martin Green of Visteon highlighted some interesting discussions regarding handovers that may be required when the vehicle (and the passengers inside) is moving between different access networks. I for one believe that this will not be an issue as there may be ways to work the priorities of access networks out. Anyway, his presentation included some useful nuggets and its embedded below:

A quick case study on Smartwatches

My presentation from the Cambridge Wireless Connected devices SIG event "On Trend – High Fashion meets High Technology" held today, is embedded below. One of my favourite ads that highlights our fascination with the smart watches has been shown very well in a advert by Samsung mobile USA as follows:



I believe there is an opportunity and a market for the smart wear and smartwatches. There is a need for just the right kind of products to capitalise on the demand.

Connectivity in 'Connected Vehicles'

An interesting presentation from the Future of Wireless International conference about the evolution and options for connected cars and other vehicles

Connected Vehicle - Accenture from Zahid Ghadialy

500 Billion devices by 2030, etc...

Few weeks back in the LTE World Summit 2013, I heard someone from Ericsson mention that internally they think that by 2030 there will be 500 Billion Connected devices on the planet. The population projections for 2030 is somewhere around 8.5 Billion people worldwide. As a result the figure does not come much as a surprise to me.

John Cunliffe from Ericsson is widely credited for making the statement 50 Billion connected devices by 2020. Recently he spoke in the Cambridge Wireless and defended his forecast on the connected devices. He also provided us with the traffic exploration tool to see how the devices market would look up till 2018. Here is one of the pictures using the tool:

In terms of Cellular connectivity, we are looking at 9 Billion devices by 2018. The interesting thing to notice is that in 2017, there are still some 4 Billion feature phones. While in the developed world our focus is completely on Smartphones, its interesting to see new and existing SMS/USSD based services are still popular in the developing world. Some months back I heard about Facebook developing SMS/USSD based experience for Feature phones, I am sure that would attract a lot of users from the developing world.

One thing missing from the above is non-cellular connections which will make bulk of connectivity. Wi-Fi for example is a major connectivity medium for tablets. In fact 90% of the tablets have only WiFi connectivity. Bluetooth is another popular method of connectivity. While its mostly used in conjunction with phones, it is going to be a popular way of connecting devices in the Personal Area Network's (PAN's). So its no surprise that we will see 50 Billion connected devices but maybe not by 2020. My guess would be around 2022-23.

Technologies from Mobile World Congress 2013 (#MWC13)

If you liked the Gadgets roundup from yesterday then you would like this one as well:



You can read more about this topic here.



You can read more about this here.











You can read more about this here.


Finally:

10 Billion out of 50 Billion - The Connected World

Remember the mantra of 50 Billion connected devices (blogged here and here) but 202x, apparently 10Billion are already here. The above slide is from a latest presentation by Chetan Sharma Consulting (embedded below). There are already 7 Billion mobile devices (phones + dongles) and 3 Billion others. The number of others will increase with M2M being the main focus and is touted as the next big thing, especially with LTE. 3GPP is focussing very heavily on standardising the MTC and is working on new features in upcoming releases.

Coming back to the topic of connected world, the presentation is embedded below and is a good read.

Ericsson Video: Networked Society 'On the Brink'

In On The Brink we discuss the past, present and future of connectivity with a mix of people including David Rowan, chief editor of Wired UK; Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr; and Eric Wahlforss, the co-founder of Soundcloud. Each of the interviewees discusses the emerging opportunities being enabled by technology as we enter the Networked Society. Concepts such as borderless opportunities and creativity, new open business models, and today's 'dumb society' are brought up and discussed.

More than 50 Billion Connected Devices

I blogged about the 50 Billion connected devices as predicted by Ericsson last year. With the promised 'Internet of things' and 'connected world' we may see 50 billion devices not too far in the near future. Here is a recent whitepaper from Ericsson on this topic.

Vision 2020 - 50 Billion Connected Devices - Ericsson from Ericsson France

50 Billion Connected Devices by 2020 (2025?)

Back in April, Hans Vestberg, CEO and the President of Ericsson declared that there will be 50 Billion connected devices by 2020.

In the recently concluded LTE World Summit, this statement seemed to have gained lots of attention. Everyone quoted this left, right and center. The interesting thing was that some said that this would happen by 2025 and some also said 2030.

While we can make a generic statement that there will be some 50 Billion connected devices sometime between 2020 and 2030, not everyone was sure how they would be connected.

My understanding is that a device is connected if it has a valid IP (IPv6) address. That means that the PC's at home are included and anything connected over WiFi are included as well.

So by this definition, it wont surprise me if we probably have 100 Billion connected devices by 2030.