Broadband World Forum (BBWF): How have you seen the automotive industry being disrupted by improved connectivity?

Benoit Joly (BJ): Cars have been connected for a while already, mostly for safety purposes – such as the use of emergency calls - and for the use of in-car navigation services. However, the rise of mobile broadband connectivity has blurred the lines between smartphone and car, creating new consumer expectations for seamless connected services experience. To put it simply, the connected car is now part of the broadband ecosystem.

BBWF: With that in mind, what do you think the future holds for connected services?

BJ: So far, the services within the car remain fundamentally the same: listening to the radio or music, getting an enhanced and safer navigation, and communicating safely and wirelessly with your peers. However, connectivity has brought clear enhancements to these experiences: music, navigation, communication…all are now “connected”, and users can enjoy their preferred digital services within the car, either natively or through smartphones, smoothly and safely.

Two additional opportunities have also emerged though with the rise of car connectivity. On one hand, the ability to connect the car with a larger ecosystem (the home, city, or e-commerce, for example) enables the creation of new services such as opening parking barriers or home garage automatically, creating personal routines based on car location, and more.

On the other hand, comes the ability to share the car or the ride, to facilitate and enable new mobility business models, hence the advent of car sharing services. Autonomous driving cars will be the next trigger to unleash a new realm of services, along with 5G deployment, consumers will be able to leverage non-driving time to enjoy new experiences: entertainment (5th Play), driving office, etc.

BBWF: How can a connected car integrate into the wider connected society we are creating?

BJ: Fundamentally, one could consider a car as an “IOT device”, with an extended set of properties, but its “mobility” nature and its ability to “host” itself some consumer experiences make it a very rich and specific one.

Thus, the value of connecting the car to the wider connected ecosystem creates a new realm of innovation and experience. From a technology standpoint, things are converging rapidly: in-car data bus is Ethernet, connectivity does leverage 3G up to 5G, and operating systems such as Android OS are being used more and more and similarly within the automotive environment.

BBWF: We recently published a report on how operators can avoid becoming a dumb pipe in today’s connected society. How do you think that operators can make themselves integral in the automotive industry?

BJ: Beyond over-the-top digital services that are usually delivered through the smartphone via Android Auto or Apple Carplay platforms, operators have the ability to create a valuable ecosystem that connects cars, home, city, and business altogether to deliver a trustful and integrated environment: they can for example aggregate data consumed through the car Wi-Fi hotspot, or content subscription streamed onto the car dashboard within the monthly telecom invoice.

BBWF: With that in mind, what is the role of operators in driving industry progression and innovation?

BJ: Connecting cars will continue to require the deployment of communication infrastructure over a long period; telecom operators are ideally positioned to fuel innovation via their network, enabling future connected services and autonomous driving: governments, cities, enterprises, will keep seeing them as trustful partners to deliver the quality that will unleash the connected car business potential.

BBWF: Finally, as an automaker, what do you want to see from operators in the future?

BJ: The advent of connectivity in the automotive industry makes services mainstream to car makers’ business; operators obviously need to deliver the right communication infrastructure, but they also need to becoming turn-key services partners that help car makers seize the value of customer journey and experience. With OEMs becoming themselves « mobility operators », with a lot of services experiments ongoing, a greater collaboration can be designed together with telecom operators to design tomorrow’s consumer connected experiences.