Telecom Lead America: Sprint has selected WirelessCar and Airbiquity as technology providers for its Sprint Velocity global connected vehicle solution.
As an integral part of Sprint’s ecosystem, WirelessCar helped to build and implement an end-to-end global solution targeted to the connected vehicle industry.
WirelessCar delivers the backend telematics components that integrate and aggregate content, services and applications with focus on embedded, vehicle-related features, including diagnostics, and remote services, such as door lock/unlock.
“Sprint recognized WirelessCar for its extensive knowledge and experience within the telematics space,” said Wayne Ward, vice president, Emerging Solutions, Sprint. “This coupled with their global footprint in 50+ countries supports the direction and requirements of Sprint Velocity.”
“There is a fundamental shift in the connected vehicle space with consumers expecting more and more connected functionality that changes rapidly,” said Martin Rosell, managing director of WirelessCar.
WirelessCar is part of Volvo IT, a member of the Volvo Group. WirelessCar operate as an independent entity addressing all vehicle manufacturers. WirelessCar’s customers include BMW, Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks and Volvo Construction Equipment.
Sprint will use the Airbiquity Choreo service delivery platform within the Sprint Velocity solution for vehicle manufacturers.
Sprint is working with technology providers to pioneer mobile integration and enablement for auto manufacturers, as well as other connected transportation solutions. Sprint and Airbiquity are exploring additional market segments where they might collaborate, including other transportation and medical markets.
“Wireless operators have significant market reach and scale and are playing a pivotal role in the design of connected vehicle solutions,” said John Canali, senior analyst of the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. “Combining the scale of wireless operators with the capabilities of category specialists would be very attractive to a number of automotive companies.”
Sprint Nextel served nearly 56 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2012.
“Sprint is a true wireless innovator and M2M market leader, and Airbiquity is pleased to contribute its expertise and experience to the groundbreaking Sprint Velocity connected vehicle solution,” said David Jumpa, chief revenue officer, Airbiquity.
