Autonomous vehicles: Entertaining passengers may be the big opportunity for telecoms operators

Autonomous vehicle opportunities for operators

While autonomous vehicles are gaining huge attention from all sectors, there is little assessment of what they mean for the telecoms sector. Based on a series of discussions with players in different roles in the value chain, and our own analysis, Analysys Mason believes that, while autonomous vehicles may have a transformative impact on society, their impact on the telecoms industry is likely to be modest, says Tom Rebbeck, research director, enterprise & IoT at Analysys Mason.

Autonomous cars will turn drivers into passengers, generating new demand for telecoms operators’ services

Autonomous vehicles are unlikely to rely on telecoms networks, despite the often-made association between 5G and autonomous driving: self-driving cars will depend more on on-board processing than the cloud. Real-time connectivity will be beneficial, but not essential.

Telecoms networks will be used for non-real-time updates to and from the vehicle (such as traffic information, mapping information and software updates), but bandwidth requirements for these services may be (relatively) low.

However, autonomous motoring will turn drivers into passengers, and potentially into consumers of video, gaming and audio content – all of which could generate new demand for telecoms operators’ services. The time frames for these developments this will be long: fully autonomous vehicles may not form the majority of vehicles until after 2030, depending on technology developments, regulation and consumer acceptance.

Figure 1 summarises the main opportunities for telecoms operators with autonomous cars.

Figure 1: Autonomous vehicle opportunities for operators

Autonomous cars do not need wide-area connectivity

Self-driving vehicles rely on information coming from their on-board sensors (for example, radar, lidar, optical) to navigate because cellular services cannot always be guaranteed to be reliable. Information from a wide-area connection will help supplement the on-board data, perhaps giving additional information about the actions and intentions of other vehicles, but the vehicle will never be dependent on that information.

This is essentially the way that experimental autonomous cars are working today – information from on-board sensors is combined with highly detailed (up to 10cm) maps. These maps can be updated, in non-real time, using a cellular connection (or via a Wi-Fi connection and fixed broadband).

Developments in ‘vehicle-to-everything’ (V2X) technology will not change this. The information available to the autonomous car will become richer, but will only act as a supplement to on-board systems. V2X could have other impacts though: unlike today’s experimental autonomous cars, which each act as an isolated unit, V2X technology could allow different vehicles to act in concert – for example allowing vehicle platooning or smoother traffic flows in cities.

Bandwidth requirements are hard to calculate, but may be (relatively) low

Intel created some interest by suggesting that autonomous cars will generate 4TB of data per day. However, this figure needs to be treated carefully. Based on the inputs provided by Intel, it seems this figure is based on a car driving for at least 15 hours a day – reasonable for the average self-driving Uber perhaps, but unlikely for a typical private car.

Intel’s 4TB figure must also be treated with caution because it is the amount of data that needs to be processed, not the volume of data that will be uploaded to the cloud. Most of the information processed by the vehicle will likely be immediately discarded – if the car ‘sees’ what it is expecting to, and navigates without incident, little of the data needs to be retained and only anomalies will be shared with the network.

Assuming a car is driven (or, more accurately, drives) for an hour a day, the car could generate as little as 250MB if only 0.1% of the data processed locally needs to be uploaded. The 0.1% figure could be too low, but illustrates that we should not assume that autonomous cars will, by their nature, generate massive quantities of data for telecoms operators. In any case, as only anomalous data will be uploaded, it will likely only be a tiny fraction of the total data processed.

Connectivity requirements for entertainment may be (much) higher than for the vehicle itself

Autonomous driving will change how we spend time in the car. Former drivers will have more time available than before, and this could generate opportunity for telecoms operators – for streaming video, audio, or even augmented reality games that mix the passing environment with game play, such as racing other cars.

Tom Rebbeck

Again, the exact impact of all of this is difficult to estimate, but could be well over 1GB for 30 minutes of video streaming. This could be addressed either by adding a vehicle’s existing connection to a data plan, through tethering smartphones or through in-car Wi-Fi hotspots that use a car’s OBD-II port. While there will be some opportunity to provide connectivity for cars to self-drive, both from providing the bandwidth and any new infrastructure that could be needed by V2X, entertaining the passengers could be the larger opportunity.

Development timescales are likely to be long

All of this will take a long time to develop and deploy. Full autonomy is unlikely to be available before well into the next decade. Assuming that autonomous cars replace traditional cars at a similar replacement rate that we see today (with around 7% of cars replaced each year), it may be 2035 until half the cars on the road are autonomous.

It could happen quicker – for example, through retrofitting vehicles with autonomous capabilities, through legislation that encourages autonomy (or even bans driving), or through autonomous cars replacing multiple traditional cars. All these are possible, but it would be a bold assumption to expect many autonomous cars ahead of 2025.

The telecoms industry may be well advanced with 6G before autonomous cars have a major impact.

The author of this blog is Tom Rebbeck research director, enterprise & IoT at Analysys Mason.

Comment on this article below or via Twitter: @IoTNow_OR @jcIoTnow

RECENT ARTICLES

Get a US$50 Amazon voucher for sharing your IoT brand knowledge

Posted on: March 28, 2024

We want to know what you know about the IoT space. Just 3 minutes could earn you a US$50 Amazon digital gift card!

Read more

Enhance EV charging performance with cellular connectivity

Posted on: March 28, 2024

Electric vehicles (EVs) are steadily growing their market share at the expense of internal combustion engine vehicles. The growth is fuelled by several factors. Perhaps most importantly, prices for EVs have started to drop as competition in the industry is intensifying. New players and models are emerging, prompting several established EV makers to lower their

Read more
FEATURED IoT STORIES

What is IoT? A Beginner’s Guide

Posted on: April 5, 2023

What is IoT? IoT, or the Internet of Things, refers to the connection of everyday objects, or “things,” to the internet, allowing them to collect, transmit, and share data. This interconnected network of devices transforms previously “dumb” objects, such as toasters or security cameras, into smart devices that can interact with each other and their

Read more

The IoT Adoption Boom – Everything You Need to Know

Posted on: September 28, 2022

In an age when we seem to go through technology boom after technology boom, it’s hard to imagine one sticking out. However, IoT adoption, or the Internet of Things adoption, is leading the charge to dominate the next decade’s discussion around business IT. Below, we’ll discuss the current boom, what’s driving it, where it’s going,

Read more

9 IoT applications that will change everything

Posted on: September 1, 2021

Whether you are a future-minded CEO, tech-driven CEO or IT leader, you’ve come across the term IoT before. It’s often used alongside superlatives regarding how it will revolutionize the way you work, play, and live. But is it just another buzzword, or is it the as-promised technological holy grail? The truth is that Internet of

Read more

Which IoT Platform 2021? IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide

Posted on: August 30, 2021

There are several different parts in a complete IoT solution, all of which must work together to get the result needed, write IoT Now Enterprise Buyers’ Guide – Which IoT Platform 2021? authors Robin Duke-Woolley, the CEO and Bill Ingle, a senior analyst, at Beecham Research. Figure 1 shows these parts and, although not all

Read more

CAT-M1 vs NB-IoT – examining the real differences

Posted on: June 21, 2021

As industry players look to provide the next generation of IoT connectivity, two different standards have emerged under release 13 of 3GPP – CAT-M1 and NB-IoT.

Read more

IoT and home automation: What does the future hold?

Posted on: June 10, 2020

Once a dream, home automation using iot is slowly but steadily becoming a part of daily lives around the world. In fact, it is believed that the global market for smart home automation will reach $40 billion by 2020.

Read more

5 challenges still facing the Internet of Things

Posted on: June 3, 2020

The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become a huge part of how people live, communicate and do business. All around the world, web-enabled devices are turning our world into a more switched-on place to live.

Read more