AT&T and Samsung joined the board of the 5G Automotive Association.
The U.S. telecom and the South Korean electronics behemoth joined members of the organization that include Audi, BMW, China Mobile, Ericsson, Intel, Nokia, Vodafone and Qualcomm to pursue the connected-car market. Jaguar Land Rover and NTT DoCoMo were also named to the board.
“We are very pleased that AT&T, Jaguar Land Rover, NTT DoCoMo and Samsung Electronics have joined the 5GAA board,” Chairman Christoph Voigt said in a press release. “With their global footprint and diverse expertise, they will contribute to further connect (the) communication and automotive industries to develop end-to-end solutions for future mobility and transportation services.”
The connected-car market is expected to grow quickly over the next few years as the overall IoT segment begins to gain significant traction. Gartner issued a forecast last fall predicting the production of new autos with data connectivity would increase from 12.4 million in 2016 to 61 million in 2020.
In the United States, though, significant political challenges must be overcome, as Joe Madden of Mobile Experts observed late last year.
"A political battle is raging in the United States, with the auto industry pushing for the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Transportation to adopt DSRC using 802.11p," commented Mobile Experts Principal Analyst Joe Madden in a press release in December. "However, the wireless industry—led by Qualcomm—is pushing for extension of Wi-Fi into the 5.8 GHz band and LTE for V2V communications. The outcome of this politicized decision will have far-reaching implications, as many other countries are waiting for the USA to make the first move."
A white paper (PDF) from 5GAA argues that Cellular-V2X (C-V2X) technology at the radio level is an essential enabler to connected transportation services throughout the world. The 5GAA perspective is that 3GPP-based cellular technology offers superior performance and a more future-proof radio access than IEEE 802.11p and can leverage ETSI-ITS, ISO, SAE and IEEE upper layer standards and tests that have been refined by the automotive industry and others in the ITS community for more than a decade.