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DISH Wireless Explains Future of the Connected Vehicle

Autonomous and Connected Vehicles have featured regularly on our blogs. In fact, couple of years back we made a tutorial on the 'Introduction to Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs)'. You can find links to some of our posts as the bottom of this post. 

Earlier this year, DISH Wireless released a whitepaper on this topic here. The original paper seems to have disappeared but you can download it (automatically) from here or view it here. Quoting the executive summary:

This white paper discusses how DISH will support the fast-growing connectivity needs of vehicles by delivering cost-effective optimization and intelligent vehicle cloud connectivity supported by private, public or hybrid-cloud infrastructure. Efficient vehicle data flow and management, for both consumer and commercial vehicles, is critical to creating a superior in-vehicle experience, even before achieving Level 4 autonomy. Properly-timed extraction and analysis of critical data is a primary value focus for connected vehicle OEMs, transportation service providers and other industry players. Use cases continue to expand across transportation services, passenger infotainment, in-vehicle advertising, location and tracking, vehicle diagnostics, hazard alerts, driver behavior and feature measurement.

Multiple gigabytes per hour of data are being generated in aggregate from the various systems within any connected vehicle today, and the volume of this vehicle-generated data continues to grow. The adoption of Level 4 driving autonomy will increase the volume of data to multiple terabytes per day, depending on the number of sensors, cameras and the quality of the video from each camera. Cost-effective and secure connectivity, as well as storage and intelligent analysis of vehicle-generated data, both in transit or at rest, is an industry imperative. Without a thoughtful and deliberate approach to managing the exponential growth in tonnage and conversion to actionable information, there is a risk of drowning in an ocean of data with ever-increasing cost and risk of achieving a return on investment.

Four key components form the backbone of DISH’s strategic plan to satisfy the growing connectivity needs of vehicles while driving cost efficiencies to industry players and end-users alike. 

The first component is dynamic access to the best network at a given time for a given use case. This dynamic network access capability means a vehicle can utilize the best network and associated radio technology to transport data in the most efficient, reliable and cost-effective manner. To enable this, DISH’s 5G network will provide network functionality that supports new device technologies and flexible subscriber management policies. Unlike traditional carrier and network service provider business models that force devices to be locked and committed to a specific network, DISH is taking a customer-centric approach that gives a connected vehicle the ability to leverage the best technology available from multiple networks simultaneously.

The second component is a unique 5G services ecosystem, specifically designed to serve the automotive industry. As connectivity needs grow due to greater workloads created by existing and next-generation connected vehicles, network performance characteristics — such as throughput and latency — must also improve significantly to keep up with demand. Stakeholders in the automotive space, from vehicle OEMs to transportation service providers, will need network functionality and cloud integration capabilities. These functionalities and capabilities will be used in the factory and continue onto the street to provide the ability to manage services and updates for new, smarter vehicle models coming into the market. 5G network slicing is just one new technology that DISH will provide to deliver these services to enterprise customers.

The third component is a private 5G network solution for key players in the automotive industry. A private 5G network is similar to a public 5G network, but it is tailored to a specific set of enterprise customer needs or may be appropriated to a specific local area. In addition, it provides all of the necessary 5G network service characteristics while offering users a range of greater control over the network operations and data security. 5G-enabled manufacturing facilities, fleet management depots, dealerships, repair shops, aftermarket service providers, logistics companies and transportation service providers can utilize various private 5G solutions to offer a robust connectivity experience for their operational and end customer needs.

The fourth component is dynamic pricing, which allows customers to fully manage the cost of their desired connectivity solutions. Cost benefits are achieved through optimization of the storage and movement of vehicular data to and from the cloud, based on the dynamic, temporal, spatial and network state information. The optimum movement of the data to and from the vehicle can reduce costs by more than 50% through coordination and correlation of data consumption with network resource availability and system utilization. 

This white paper describes how DISH will provide unique 5G solutions to deliver a comprehensive connected vehicle experience for drivers and passengers, and favorably bend the cost curve of connected vehicles using DISH’s cloud-native, open, 5G network.

Here is a companion video to go along with the whitepaper

Connected vehicles is a big market in the USA. Some years back we wrote about how AT&T was winning the connected cars race but other US operators are not behind.

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