Based on the complete success last year, Telematics@China Tour will be further expanded this year. Beginning with Shanghai event on April 20, Telematics@China Tour (www.telematics-tour.com) this year will hold 9 serial events in 8 Chinese cities, covering all the hot topics of industry concern. The Telematics@China Organizing Committee has confirmed that Mr. David McClure from SBD will join the Beijing event personally on June 15 as the Top Knowledge Partner. He will make a keynote speech about the automotive and telecom industry. In this exclusive interview Mr. David McClure comments on the information gaps, revenue opportunities and the need for collaboration between the automotive and telecoms industry.
After the success of last week’s Telematics@China Tour event in Chonqging, what are your expectations for the forthcoming seminar in Beijing?
The aim of the Beijing event is to start building bridges between the vehicle manufacturers and the mobile network operators. These industries represent some of the key players in the overall telematics value chain, but there is still much misunderstanding on both sides. I believe that if we can start to overcome these gaps then it will help us all to build a better future for telematics, not just in China, but across the rest of the world also.
Can you give us some examples of what the OEMs hope to learn from the network operators?
Certainly. One challenge for OEMs is to decide whether to install a 2G or 3G modem in the car, especially if their applications are not data intensive. One of the main factors affecting this decision is the uncertainty surrounding 2G switch off in many markets around the world. The OEMs are struggling to get any long term commitments from the MNOs, mainly because of the challenges of forecasting what might happen in 12 to 15 years time.
A second challenge for OEMs is their current inability to change the MNO associated with their embedded SIM chips. This means that they are tied to a single operator for the lifetime of the car, a situation that makes the OEMs very uncomfortable. Standards are being developed for reprogrammable SIMs, but little information or detailed timing plans are currently available.
That’s interesting – I can see that things can be difficult for the OEMs, but does the information gap work both ways? What challenges do the MNOs face?
Yes, the knowledge gap certainly works in both directions. For example, some MNOs are currently happy to accept relatively low revenues from basic telematics services now because they are confident that cars will become more connected, with data-intensive features such as internet radio.
However, the majority of OEMs are currently implementing internet radio in the car through smartphone integration technologies such as Terminal Mode and Real VNC. The majority are not running these high bandwidth services through embedded SIMs. The MNOs need to see the complete picture as it covers all forms of connectivity, rather than focussing only of the traditional M2M solutions.
And do you see any way for the two industries to get closer, building on the links that we hope to build in Beijing this week?
Yes, one of the main opportunities going forward to likely to be the new Connected Car Forum that the GSMA has initiated with the support of SBD. The headline aim of the Forum is to accelerate the deployment of connected services in cars through dialogue and cooperation between the MNOs and OEMs. Invitations have just been sent out for the first meeting on the 28th June in London, with agenda items set to include not only the information sharing topics such as 2G switch off and reprogrammable SIMs, but also a joint exploration of more tangible opportunities for collaboration.
Can you give us any insight into what these opportunities may be?
The main initial thrust is to look at the resources, experience and capabilities of the MNOs and to consider how these could be applied to the world of telematics more systematically than they have been to date. Potential topics for investigation include app stores, micro-billing and customer management. However, these are just some of the initial ideas, and we expect a much wider range of topics to come from the first meeting.
I will present further details of the Connected Car Forum at the Telematics@China Tour event in Beijing this week, which I hope will be of interest to all attendees, and especially those from China’s MNOs.
I’m sure that it will be. Thank you very much for your thoughts, and see you in Bejing.
You’re welcome!
Source: NAVIBIZ