AT&T Connected Car Strategy: Don’t Be a Dumb Pipe

One area where telecommunications companies may be able to avoid becoming dreaded “dumb pipe” providers is in the connected car.

AT&T already is making considerable progress on this front, as the company announced their "AT&T Drive and AT&T Drive Studio" initiatives are gaining substantial traction. AT&T Drive is a modularized connected car platform that lets automakers pick and choose from various capabilities -- including billing, data analytics, infotainment, firmware over-the-air updates and others -- to create a customized offering. AT&T has wisely recognized that automakers may prefer to hand off a large part of the platform development process -- and that only makes sense: If AT&T’s modular and customizable approach works as intended, the company will be able to spread development costs over multiple automaker customers while also enabling each automaker to have a differentiated offering.