It’s all happening in the automotive space at this year’s CES. Yesterday our sister publication DeveloperTech covered Google’s “Open Automotive Alliance.” Today AT&T announced its own connected car initiative.
The new effort, called AT&T Drive, is being developed in partnership with industry leaders including Ericsson, Amdocs, Jasper Wireless, Synchronoss and others. The platform is designed to support LTE-connected car services and give automakers, suppliers and developers a place to build and test next-generation automotive applications.
At the heart of the initiative is the Drive Studio, located near AT&T’s Foundry Innovation Center. The studio provides a dedicated, 5,000-square-foot testing environment with garage bays, a speech lab, a full showroom for demonstrating innovations, conference facilities and more. The space is intended to replicate real-world conditions so engineers and developers can create, refine and validate systems that improve safety, diagnostics, entertainment and overall driver experience.
AT&T positions Drive as a comprehensive platform automakers and suppliers can integrate with the carrier’s network. Key focus areas include:
• Global SIM and global provisioning to support vehicles that travel across borders
• Unique global billing solutions tailored to connected vehicle services
• Safety, security and diagnostics solutions that enable real-time monitoring and remote troubleshooting
• Voice enablement and safe driving solutions that reduce distraction while enabling voice-driven control
• Service delivery frameworks to manage connectivity and feature rollouts
• Secure firmware updates to keep vehicle software current and protected
• Application store capabilities to distribute and monetize apps for the in-car environment
• Policy management tools to handle access, privacy and feature entitlements
These carrier-backed capabilities give AT&T Drive some advantages over Google’s car-related efforts, especially around billing, global provisioning and secure over-the-air updates. However, whether third-party developers will flock to AT&T’s ecosystem as they have to Android remains an open question. The success of any platform depends on developer engagement, available tools and the market reach of participating automakers.
In its announcement, AT&T explained the rationale behind Drive: as 4G LTE networks expand across the U.S., nearly every automaker is pursuing connected-car features that leverage faster data—ranging from voice-controlled apps and infotainment to advanced diagnostics. A carrier-led platform aims to simplify delivering those experiences at scale.
AT&T is not alone in building automotive testbeds. Sprint unveiled a vehicle testing environment called Velocity in November 2012 and has acted as a strategic partner for Chrysler’s Uconnect system. Such initiatives show how carriers are positioning themselves as critical partners for the automotive industry as vehicles become increasingly software- and connectivity-driven.
Ralph De La Vega of AT&T summed up the company’s vision on its website: “The future of the connected car is going to be amazing. And the AT&T Drive Studio is where we will reinvent and reimagine the car of tomorrow.”
What do you think about AT&T’s Drive platform?