The cloud, the cloud, the cloud – some of the most popular buzzwords in telecommunications, IT and now the connected car. It’s a fact that the connected car will rely heavily on the cloud to store data collected within the vehicle, data shared among vehicles and data delivered to the vehicle. This is where big data joins the discussion, more popular buzzwords from telecommunications and IT. The reality is that the data collected in the connected car is big – really big. This isn’t customer data, but rather the vehicle data. According to IBM, the average car generates about 1.3 gigabytes for every hour it’s in use. If the average car drives four hours per day and there are roughly 60 million cars manufactured each year; that translates into 312 million gigabytes or 108 exabytes annually. Now keep in mind that for automotive safety and liability requirements a great deal of this data must be stored for up to 25 years.
For the cloud to be realistic in a real-time fashion for the connected car it needs to be moved closer to the edge of the mobile network. Nokia Networks is working with other equipment vendors and operators to create a new European Telecommunications Standards Institute Industry Specification Group for Mobile Edge Computing. This working group within ETSI is focused on developing an environment in which ultra-low latency, high bandwidth and real-time access to the radio network can enable new applications to be developed for a cloud environment.
Securing connected car data
How does all of this data stay secure? From encryption to IPSec and SSL to virtualization to security orchestration to having dedicated personnel focused on security. Ranked as the highest priority for companies working on the connected car, security must be built in within the cloud and during the data transfer process – a key criteria for possible solutions.
Customer experience management is also slowly creeping into these discussions. A longtime topic in the telecommunications industry, the OEMs are starting to use these words. Nikitas Drakopolous, CIO at Mercedes-Benz Cars, recently spoke at the Automotive IT Kongress at CeBit, and he could have been a CMO instead of a CIO based on his talk. Drakopolous talked about the customer experience of owning a Mercedes throughout the life cycle of the car. He talked about bringing together the digital and physical brand to be a consistent experience and how interactivity with the car makes it more interesting.
“Cars need to be more interactive, like an expensive smartphone on wheels,” Drakopolous stated, adding thoughts on copying Amazon.com and offering car automotive functions as a service.
Want to learn more about these topics? Join RCR Wireless News’ driving profits through the intersection of telecommunications and automotive webinar to hear from industry experts on April 15. The link to register is here. Also, on that day a new feature report on this topic will be available for download at no charge.
Like what you read? Follow me on twitter!
Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career in telecom, IT and security. Having experience as an operator, software and hardware vendor and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
