Car connectivity: EU members not keen on using Wi-Fi

Car connectivity, a thing of the present and near future. European Commission wants to regulate and standardize the way cars will connect with each other in the future. The options are either Wi-Fi or 5G and right now it’s now looking good for Wi-Fi. These technologies are bound to make huge profits to the car manufacturers, OEM manufacturers and especially the telecommunication companies.

There is already a certain amount of infrastructure in place for Wi-Fi as we would expect. This leads some of the biggest car manufacturers like Volkswagen, Renault, and Toyota to be ready to invest more in this field. However, there’s is also a big line of car and tech manufacturers supporting 5G technology. These include BMW, the PSA Group, Daimler, Ford and tech giants such as Qualcomm, Samsung, and Huawei. Some of the car manufacturing giants are already investing and developing automotive cloud systems. VW is building a strategic partnership with Microsoft as its software developer.

Because manufacturers are unable to agree on a joint car connectivity technology, EU officials are pushing for regulations and future standards. Right now the officials see the benefit of Wi-Fi in its already existing infrastructure. 5G is just starting up and they see this as a concern. They do acknowledge the fact that 5G is much more advanced and will offer more benefits when applied properly. 5G is also already being used as the basis for autonomous self-driving technologies. It will also be a part of connecting many other devices, not just cars. Based on that, 5G sounds like the obvious choice, Wi-Fi is old tech compared to 5G.

The voting took place in Brussels, Belgium. 21 countries including France, Germany, and Italy were against the use of Wi-Fi. So good news from the meme banning EU parliament, why was Wi-Fi even being considered is the real question.