LIVE FROM FUTURE OF WIRELESS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, LONDON: Mobile operators must continue to evolve and invest for the industry to truly see the benefits of a world powered by the Internet of Things (IoT). That was the message from this morning’s session featuring speakers from operator group GSMA and car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover.

Alex Sinclair, GSMA CTO, and Jaguar’s connected car director, Mike Bell, spoke of the challenges facing the industry in enabling the internet of things, and said the evolution of something like the connected car is dependent on how mobile and regulators can adapt to a changing ecosystem.

“At the GSMA, we see the evolving role of the mobile operator as crucial,” said Sinclair. “They have to transform from retail and consumer led companies to becoming partners in B2B and B2C operations. We hope this will lead to a positive disruption in other industries and sectors.”

Jaguar Land Rover presented some new connected car features at the event, including real time traffic monitoring, integrating smartphone technology within the car and full screen navigation through an IP connection.

Bell said the company made a £2.7 billion profit last year, which led to a £3.5 billion investment in product development this year.

jag“People wonder why a company like Jaguar Land Rover is interested in a conference like this,” he said (pictured, left). “The fact is the whole automotive sector is changing and the connected car is transforming the industry. We are now an advanced technology company.”

He said up to 94 per cent of its customers opt in to connected car services, but some “real world challenges” continue to hinder advancement, particularly in the UK.

“In terms of high bandwidth connectivity on UK roads, particularly on motorways, using connected cars is not very positive,” said Bell. “On many major motorways, you cannot access 3G or above. It’s much better in population centric areas, and this is more of a challenge in the UK than Western Europe and other parts of the US. When customers pay for our services, they expect them to work, and when they don’t, we get complaints.”

He noted that Ofcom was trying to improve the situation, but believes the operators need to put a lot more infrastructure in to improve the situation, which they’ll find difficult as the strain on revenues continues to increase

Economic problem
Sinclair conformed and said coverage issues are in no way a “technology problem, it’s an economical problem”, arguing that Europe needed to be more conducive to consolidation to solve the issue.

“It’s not about technology at all. If you put enough base stations, you can have best coverage in any given land mass,” he said. “It all comes down to economic sustainability. The UK is not the world’s leader in coverage, and UK operators have a global presence where they actually have better coverage in other countries.”

He said the GSMA had published several reports and lobbied governments, urging for consolidation to be at least part of the solution. “Operators have to pay a lot for spectrum, just look at Germany last week, and they also have to invest a lot of Capex. We’re talking about operators now making revenues for 5G that don’t even exist yet, so working together and consolidating has to be part of the answer.”