The LTE Connected Car

Cell-based connectivity for vehicles is quickly becoming a serious competitor to direct vehicle-to-vehicle communication. For many of the envisioned VANET applications that are based on multihop routing I would say that cell-based, centralized, communication architectures are a more robust, efficient and feasible alternative. But the case for direct V2V communication is not dead, these technologies will work side by side to provide both high bandwidth "bulk services" for entertainment and comfort as well as low latency, low bandwidth safety critical services.

On January 19 telecom company Alcatel Lucent demoed a Prius connected to a Long Term Evolution (LTE) basestation outside of Paris. From the press release:

"In addition to the LTE Connected Car, the event also will feature drive demonstrations, in an LTE-equipped R&D van – used to test the capabilities of LTE technology -- of mobile services on the company’s campus-wide LTE network operating at 2.6 GHz, which is expected to be one of the leading frequency bands for LTE in Europe. The demonstration, using Alcatel-Lucent’s end-to-end LTE solution and a mobile device from LG Electronics, will feature multiple, simultaneous streaming video sessions, multiplayer mobile games and photo and music downloads, as well as a smooth transition between 3G/HSPA and LTE networks, a critical requirement for operators that need to ensure a seamless quality of experience for their subscribers as they begin to deploy LTE."

In addition to the communication part, the demo also showcases how this could be integrated into several cool services in future cars. Now we just need to fill up our cars with passenger to utilize all these services that the driver can't because he's driving, the average occupancy of vehicles in the SF Bay Area in 2006 was 1.3