Do automakers need to be experts in network management?

The new business reality for automakers 

The phrase “In these troubled times…” is trotted out with increasing regularity when talking about the Automotive industry. Covid-19 has had significant impact on both sales and supply line. Coupled with the financial demands of investment in new drivetrain technologies, changing business models and keeping up with the inexorable digitalization of end-consumer lives, makes for a challenging business environment (to say the least!). In addition, competition between automotive brands is unabated.  

In the automotive context, digitalization relates to connected vehicle and connected customer services. It spans from safety and security to convenience to infotainment to maintenance – all facilitated by connectivity services supplied by communications service providers (CSPs) the world over. OEMs are looking to monetize their investment in connected services, and all have the need for “seamless” connectivity services – measured in varying degrees by coverage, reliability, latency, capacity and (last but by no means least) cost - according to the demands of the service in play. 

Navigating connectivity for cars 

Procuring and implementing the right connectivity services to meet the connected vehicle service needs for a global automotive OEM are complex, therefore a time consuming and costly business. There are several factors to manage and the OEM has a perfect storm to navigate through: 

• increased volume of vehicles connected - both legacy and new sales 
• service proliferation - some of which will consume substantially more data than simple telematics (e.g. Software over-the-air, streaming video, V2X)  
• broader network evolution  
• diverse mix of connectivity service providers needed to achieve global connectivity; each with their own tools to manage connectivity  
• advancing telecommunications solutions; subscription management and 5G potential 
• dynamic regulatory landscape.  

That brings us back to our question; Do Automotive OEMs need to devote significant internal resources to connected vehicle cellular network management and connectivity management? Or are there alternative scenarios that will have a financially beneficial impact on total cost of connectivity in support of their connected vehicle services?  

Global OEM connectivity challenges 

OEMs want the best return on investment and need to ensure excellence in customer satisfaction. For many years the model for managing connectivity services was to contract a few major regional CSPs to fulfil the lion’s share of the vehicles sold in their respective territories through their home networks. They need to rely on their roaming relationships to mop up the other territories.  

Some connected vehicle services weren’t launched in some countries because of local barriers to a cost-effective introduction. The latter having an impact on the OEM’s ability to recover investment across all vehicles sold. Restrictions due to banning permanent roaming, specific country data privacy legislation and the application needs of specific service evolution are creating momentum for local CSPs to provide the connectivity services. Some commentators believe that the number of countries where these local restrictions and specific compliances exist will continue to rise. For a global OEM anything “non-standard” is a pain that requires extra effort to address – The management of exceptions doesn’t fit neatly into a global connected vehicle service business plan. 

To address this, we have seen the rise of specific Mobile Virtual Network Operators that cater more specifically for the automotive sector. This is a convenient solution commercially but, arguably, they may be a little more challenged when it comes to guaranteeing quality of service. As connected vehicle services become more demanding of network assets, the capability of these providers to meet enhanced levels of functionality may be stretched. Will a roaming agreement be enough, and with increases in data traffic will the roaming cost be too much to bear? As with all things there are those that will excel and those that deliver mediocre results. 

Universal Connectivity for Automotive 

I still haven’t answered the questions. So, here goes – “No” - they don’t and, “yes” there are. Ericsson has just launched a new service called “Universal Connectivity for Automotive” – (UCA for short) that has the clear aim to make global connectivity easier for automotive OEMs reducing the complexity and helping achieve better total cost of connectivity.  

To enable highly mobile Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, enterprises are seeking seamless global connectivity and smooth integration with relevant application ecosystems and development tools.  As the leading telecom infrastructure vendor, Ericsson has the competence, portfolio and global relationships with the operator network worldwide to mitigate any challenges that arise in helping OEMs secure connectivity services for the global deployment of connected services. But to be very clear, we do not sell or resell data plans from our operator customers or anyone else.  

UCA is built on top of the foundation of our common IoT Service Platform (IoT Accelerator (IoTA), formerly Device Connection Platform (DCP)), which is sold as-a-Service to over 35 CSPs globally. It is present in more than 100 countries including China, and the platform is used by more than 6000 enterprises with, in total, over 60 million provisioned subscriptions, at the time of this article. All that said, there is a recognition that the immediate Ericsson IoTA “family” of operators may not cover certain geographies due to regulations. In some cases, there is no existing onboarded partner operator in a specific territory. So, we have the means to work with others that use different tools for connectivity management. But (and here is the nub) we provide a uniform experience across the globe, harmonizing the connectivity management to a common approach. Those integrations to non-IoT Accelerator operators, complete the picture to offer an effective solution for global connectivity, including highly regulated markets like India, Russia, Brazil, UAE, Turkey, etc.  

Benefits of UCA 

The OEM can benefit from a customized approach to optimize the number of operator partners required to meet their global connectivity needs. Needs can be tailored based on; the volumes of vehicles sold within the respective countries, understanding the geographical reach of the mobile network operators, and the relationships they have, to support cost-effective connectivity through resell and roaming in addition to their own networks. If vehicle manufacturers wish to concentrate operator candidate selection to those using IoT Accelerator and exploit the partnerships that exist between those operators, then they can optimize the number of operators selected to deliver the most “local” service and operational excellence. 

The UCA service comprises two main components: 

1. Connectivity Management Orchestration. The ability to unify multiple Connectivity Management Platform's (CMPs) APIs into a single set of APIs "single pane of glass" for ease of global connectivity management, along with the integration and life cycle management to multiple connectivity vendors. This is a key benefit of UCA, and goes beyond just the IoTA platform Mobile Network Operator (MNO) participants and allows integration towards other vendors’ solutions  
2. Dedicated automotive-specific Service Operations Center (SoC) providing 24/7/365 support, operational monitoring and performance management. The Service Operations Center is a SPOC for the Automotive OEM for connectivity management, working on behalf of the OEM and interfacing with all underlying CMPs/MNOs and embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC) subscription management platforms 

In addition to the above there are two optional service elements that comprise premium capability: 

Subscription Management as-a-Service. Following the publication by the GSMA of the “Embedded SIM Remote Provisioning Architecture” and the associated “Remote Provisioning Architecture for eUICC Technical Specification v2.0”, Ericsson is able to provide Subscription Management as-a-Service enabling the secure personalization in an interoperable way of an embedded UICC post-issuance by downloading, using Over The Air (OTA) over HTTP/SMS, a full operator profile in a card embedded or inserted in a M2M device, enabling a full management of the subscription life cycle. (subject of course to a direct commercial relationship between operator and OEM.) However, we recognize that due to some OEMs’ existing relationships with Subscription management providers that this component of the service is not always required. 

Setting up, managing and maintaining several integrations with mobile operators is very challenging. Each individual integration must be managed and controlled. Often, parallel set ups arise, where similar networking components are copied into every network integration. A holistic, complete view which abstracts all underlying networks is not available. Optionally, Ericsson UCA can provide a “network as-a-Service” aggregation layer entitled "Unified Networking". This provides a uniform (that word again) service level across multiple network operators and geographies. A single point of orchestration across a global collection of operators. Vehicle connectivity can be managed based on vehicle profile regardless of CSP network being used. Easy configuration of private networks and security controls to protect the cellular edge of the OEM’s digital business. 

Flexible connectivity

The UCA proposition is sufficiently flexible to allow OEMs to write their own “recipe” of operators. Ericsson can provide vehicle manufacturers with reduced total cost of connectivity. Vehicle manufacturers can innovate and deploy new connected vehicle services, all over the world, quickly and efficiently. As part of Ericsson’s connected vehicle cloud, UCA utilizes the rich functionality and services within that platform to enable vehicle manufacturers to further evolve their connected services, and spend less time and money managing them. The future of the car is a connected one; new service capabilities and updates are at the forefront of manufacturers ‘agendas but managing the complexity of connecting cars globally doesn’t have to be. Especially with an expert friend – Ericsson Automotive.

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