Motor World Congress

When looking for big themes in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress (News - Alert), the industry always ends up with a few major ones. This time Telematics has been a major theme.

Here are some of the highlights from the show.

• Huawei (News - Alert) showcased their modem solutions and their ability to deliver Wi-Fi to the vehicle.
• China Unicom (News - Alert) with Airbiquity’s help is delivering to Chinese Auto makers and aftermarket solutions for infotainment and smartphone integration, commercial vehicle fleet services, CRM, and other traditional telematics services.
• Novatel with SeeControl launch a pan-European Usage Based Insurance solution.
• Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) announced its own M2M telematics marketplace.
• Renault announced its own marketplace for customers to discover as well.

All this and Bill Ford, (no relation) talking about the need for better solutions that match the customers need. 

Bringing Telematics in and creating the self-driving car seems to be on a lot of companies’ minds. I am not sure this strategy is cohesive. The Auto Industry recently made it clear they do not want share spectrum and TV White Space to interfere with their plans. So, for today it looks like the mobile service providers and the automakers are just best friends.