'Connected Vehicles' Seen As Growth Area For Telecoms

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ this week unveiled an automobile-sharing system that enables customers to use smart phones to rent a car without interacting with an on-site attendant. The app-based system, to be available later this year, is one example of an increasing focus on transportation for telecommunications companies. "The car is becoming a smartphone on wheels,” AT&T T Mobility's president Ralph de la Vega told analysts earlier this year. Since 2012, AT&T T has offered trucking companies a fleet management system that tracks vehicles and provides a host of data to field managers on availability, fuel consumption, routing and other metrics. Verizon Chief Executive Lowell McAdam told the Intelligent Transport Systems Conference in Detroit this week that the company is at work on command centers for emergency traffic management, smart street lights that help drivers find parking spaces and pay for them via their wireless device. http://itsworldcongress.org/ Verizon's car rental system will see customers scan a code on the vehicle's windshield, validating the transaction. A key fob icon then appears on the app allowing the driver to unlock and start the vehicle. Verizon recently helped sponsor a public-private research center at the University of Michigan that will develop systems and products for so-called connected vehicles. http://www.mtc.umich.edu/vision/news-events/u-m-mobility-transformation-center-announces-founding-corporate-partners