May

Internet TV Will Let You Be A sofa Potato In Traffic

Posted by admin Published in Auto News

Television has left domestic to invade just about every facet of contemporary life from airport gates to supermarket checkout lines. One of the final holdouts for real-time TV broadcasts has been your car.

That’s about to change, thanks to WiMax.

So far, real-time in-car television has largely been limited to KVH Industries and other companies that offer satellite TV service - whether you have a vehicle big adequate for the huge antenna - and the three kid’s channels offered by Sirius Backseat TV.

USTelematics is skipping the satellites and betting on WiMax wireless technology to deliver IPTV to its Voyager in-car entertainment systems, 3G mobile phones and 4G WiMax handsets. Its announced the launch of “mobilecast” program dubbed 4VDO to deliver broadcast and video programming.

It’s a big step forward for in-car entertainment, where there’s more at stake than keeping the kids quiet during a enlarged drive.

The global automotive telematics market is booming, with revenues expected to jump from the $37.5 billion it saw in 2006 to $48 billion by 2012. A lot of that growth will be driven by the rollout of

Intelligent Transportation Systems, a traffic management and safety system based on WiMax connectivity, but the market for consumer safety, communications and convenience services is expected to see double-digit growth. Services such as real-time traffic, safety monitoring and vehicle diagnostics already are available, and it’s only a matter of instance before we’re downloading info and streaming music in our cars.

Big names like Hughes Telematics and Microsoft have entered the market, while upstarts like USTelematics hope to get a seat at the table. More are certain to follow. ”I sign these field of dream technologies, where whether they build it they
will come,” says Avi Greengart, research director for mobile devices
for Current Analysis.

And while 4VDO service is designed to deliver live TV into moving vehicles, the long-term payoff for the company is leveraging the technology to become the primary pipeline into
next-generation wireless devices and Web-connected cars that will soon roam the road.

Photo by Flikr user cincomomo.