Starting in model year 2024, GM vehicles will be able to access 5G networks; OTA updates will bolster LTE performance in the ‘next chapter of connected driving’
GM’s vehicles are getting a 5G upgrade as of model year 2024, courtesy of AT&T — and in the same timeframe, existing LTE-capable vehicles from model year 2019 onward will also be getting a performance boost from over-the-air updates, executives from the two companies said.
Santiago Chamorro, GM’s vice president of global connected services, said in a media briefing that GM’s customers “want to be protected and connected at all times” and are relying on the jointly-offered connectivity services from GM and AT&T to do so on a large scale. Through its GM’s OnStar service, he said, the company handles around 6,000 automatic crash notifications around the globe every month, and it helps to locate about 1,500 stolen vehicles per month just in the United States. In terms of data use in connected vehicles, which GM has offered in partnership with AT&T since 2014, “The growth is quite amazing,” Chamorro said. Since 2014 across GM brands, vehicle owners have used more than 171 million gigabytes of data, which is equivalent to around 5.7 billion hours of streaming music.
In September 2020, GM announced that it was the first automaker with more than 1 million subscribers to its Wi-Fi-enabled data services, which are enabled by AT&T’s cellular network. Gregory Wieboldt, AT&T’s SVP of global business industry solutions, said that the Wi-Fi service opened the door for additional data services. GM added AT&T’s WarnerRide to its vehicles as an option last year; the service provides access to Warner Media content including Cartoon Network and HBO Max.
“We now connect more vehicles than any other carrier and GM has played a critical role in our success,” Wieboldt said, adding that the deployment of 5G in GM vehicles will usher in “the next chapter of connected driving.”
AT&T expects that millions of GM vehicles will be connected to 5G over the next decade. The partnership also loops in Microsoft’s cloud services; GM already has a standing relationship with Microsoft centered on commercializing self-driving vehicles using cloud-computing capabilities from Microsoft.
Beyond consumer vehicles, GM has added OnStar Vehicle Insights for fleet management connected services within the past year, and Chamorro said that the service covers about 60 million commercial vehicle routes moving around the U.S. over 200 million miles, and that the service has sent about 3.5 million notifications to fleet managers since launch. Once 5G service is available in GM vehicles, the automaker said, it will “provide access for its strategic partners to connect over AT&T’s 5G network, raising the bar for the interoperability and scale necessary to deliver future mobility services, such as e-commerce, smart city and vehicle-to-electric grid.”
Chamorro said that 5G will bring speed and performance improvement, complement GM’s strategy in hardware and software to connect more modules within its vehicle architecture, and continue to provide safety and entertainment services with added security. “The ability to perform more upgrades and more updates in more modules in the vehicles, and potentially being able to create products and services for our customers to do that is going to grow quite significantly,” Chamorro said.
During the briefing, executives from both companies emphasized how closely the two companies have been working on an end-to-end technology approach to 5G, from the vehicle and how the in-vehicle network connects to the cellular Radio Access Network and infrastructure, to the network core — and that AT&T’s close relationship with GM allows it to have both the scale and influence to not only build a network that supports connected cars, but to influence roadmaps.
The companies are not disclosing which 5G bands that GM vehicles will support, except to say that it will be “diverse” and “fully aligned with the spectrum strategy of AT&T.”
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