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A Third Of New Cellular Customers Last Quarter Were Cars (recode.net)

Posted by msmash on from the connected-things dept.

Ina Fried, reporting for Recode: With the U.S. smartphone market saturated, most of the growth in the cellular industry is actually coming from other kinds of devices including tablets, machine-to-machine connections and lots and lots of cars. In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars (Editor's note: amounting to a 32 percent capture) as new accounts than they did phones.

6 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Don't use a cellphone while driving by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't those engineers know anything?

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    1. Re:Don't use a cellphone while driving by cashman73 · · Score: 3, Funny
      and the remainder within reach of your girlfriend.

      I think you are forgetting that this is Slashdot you're posting at.

  2. Every Parents' Worse Nightmare by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    They were allowed to drive themselves. Now they have cellphones. Won't be long before they're at the drive in, making out and having babies.

  3. Why? by cashman73 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My car automatically connects to my phone via Bluetooth every time I get in. I can listen to mp3 music over the car stereo, talk to someone via hands free, or even listen to pandora over the phone's LTE connection (though I have enough mp3s that I don't have to). I can even use the phone's GPS to tell me where I am and give me instructions through the car stereo on where I need to go. I don't need an extra monthly bill so that the car has its own connection. But capitalists love connected cars because the auto manufacturers can advertise the next generation "connected automobile" and the wireless companies get another monthly revenue stream. They're also hopeful on marketing this to parents so that they can have an internet connection available for their kids to watch Netflix or play games on long family trips instead of actually having to ***gasp*** socialize and interact with them.

    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      So the car can send telemetry data back to the manufacturers to let them know what you're doing to the car so they can reject warranty claims. (See the story about the Tesla that auto-drove into a truck.)

      I mean, to enable exciting new features like live updated maps and traffic in the in-car navigation system and things like in-car wifi! Totally not to constantly spy on you and everything you do!

  4. Re:it ain't free, so by HumanWiki · · Score: 3, Informative

    For my car, a 2016 Camaro SS, there's little that will be broken. The only things you would lose are the ability to make/take call on the car's phone number, you can still pair your BT phone just fine as with most modern cars. If you bought the Nav system, that is independent and will function just fine, but you don't get Directions and Connections from OnStar anymore.

    Your XM channels and traffic are a fully separate thing you can choose to continue or not.

    Honestly outside of the remote diagnostics and the OnStar App functions, you don't lose much. (for me, anways).