WiFi in Your Rental Car

Jezebel writes "Avis is bundling a 3G-to-802.11 bridge with their rental cars that will turn the vehicles into WiFi hotspots. Will we now have to worry about laptop use on the Interstate?" From the article "Autonet Mobile CEO Sterling Pratz told the International Herald Tribune that the In-Car Router will function in around 95 percent of the country, including all major US cities. Pratz claims to have minimized the problem of dropped signals with a technology similar to that used by the space shuttles to maintain an Internet connection."

Comments

alternate to municiple wifi

[v1]

This would be an interesting way to solve the problem of municiple wifi. If even 5% of the cars in a city were functioning as short range wifi routers, and if they were using tech similar to cell phones how they hand off seamlessly from tower to tower, that would be a really elegant way to network entire cities. No need to plant towers like dandellions, no problems with dead zones due to buildings, etc. I'm not thinking of people browsing web while in their car, but imagine being able to use voice or video chat (think iChat) while driving down the freeway, your car reading you a new email as you sit at a stoplight, or being able to take your laptop to the park and know there are a dozen hotspots within 300 feet of whatever park you pick. I hope this takes off.

Tho the way things are going, some paraoid person is going to flip out because it will make it easier for people to get untraceable internet access and lord knows we can't allow that, and will ruin it for everyone.

Kind of Shortsighted, don't you think?

[sabinm]

Will we now have to worry about laptop use on the Interstate?

Yes, because the first application I think of when I think of riding in the car is a surfing the web on a laptop. This is a step further in a persistent connection to caches of information on the road. We're pretty much limited by GPS, commercial radio, cellular and CB communications. Let's get out of thinking that a computer is something you sit at and type. Multiple devices can take advantage of a persistent connection on the road. A networked car computer will either enhance or replace already existing information channels (like the ones I previously mentioned). And supply a few more; think of automated driving and distancing through wireless arrays. Traffic systems that can 'predict' with greater accuracy when cars need the lights changed or the railroad crossing sign lifted. Anyway, Yeah, people will use it to download iTunes (is that a bad thing), but let's get beyond the old man sitting at the terminal inputing text at a keyboard. That is SO twentieth century.

Fix your customer service first...

[garcia]

I went to Las Vegas over Christmas because nothing says Christmas like Vegas... As partof ourpackage deal we had a car rental from Avis. After arrivig, we took the 10 min bus ride to their area and were directed to one of 10 or so kiosks for service.

While this works for the most part with airlines, it blows for people flying in at 11pm. There two real people on duty with a line of about 50. The kiosks wouldn't pull up anyone's info and directed you to go to the counter instead.

After waiting in line for over an hour, I was told that the kiosks are down. Awesome, direct me there when you know full well they don't work.

So, if they can't keep their kiosks running, I can't only imagine what their 3Gwifi will be like.

Re:Can they really achieve the coverage

[Da_Weasel]

More than likely no, but if you really need access out in those areas, then there are satellite options, although I'm sure they are cost prohibitive for most situations.

GSM Coverage Maps:
http://www.coveragemaps.com/gsmposter.htm

The Killer App

[ukemike]

The killer app for this will be to add real-time traffic conditions, and traffic cams, to the GPS mapping system in your car. Every day on the way home I exit from the freeway one exit early because about 20% of the time traffic is backed up and it takes 30 min to get to the next exit. When traffic isn't backed up staying on the freeway saves 10 minutes. But for me arriving at a predictable time is more important that trying to beat the odds. If I could access a traffic cam from my car a few minutes before I got to that exit it would be soooo cool.

The downside is once there is significant adoption of this tech then everybody will know about that crash that has the freeway tied up, and having the info won't help me because everybody else will already be clogging up the alternate routes.

Re:The Killer App

[Ollierose]

A better approach might be to follow the example of the motorways in the UK - they have overhead signs with a matrix to display a road sign (perhaps an altered speed limit) along with a reason for the altered limit. An example might be that it says "50 (surrounded by flashing amber lights) Queuing Traffic Ahead". These are usually a couple of miles apart, so they won't catch everything.

Around busier interchanges, there is an overhead gantry with a smaller matrix per lane, which allows police to advise traffic of closed lanes ahead and lower speed limits. These systems are usually a lot closer together, probably at 1/2 mile intervals.

It would probably be a better bet than the in-car systems, and would still allow people to drive their "classic" rustbuckets on the upgraded roads. It however requires driver intervention, which is why newer deployments are backed by speed cameras in places.

Re:The Killer App

[JazzLad]

Here in the states, the Salt Lake valley of Utah has these on I-15. I've never /noticed/ them tell me to slow down, but they often give predicted times to different points ahead (indicating traffic congestion) - especially when headed toward downtown Salt Lake City.