The wifi wave protocol or 802.11p [1] has been the cause of recent contest between the EU parliament and EU Telecommunication Network Operators association (ETNO). The dispute being that a wifi only standard will stall the growth in the connected car segment.

The misgivings of ENTO are well founded.

> "In fact, research also shows that customers are willing to switch manufacturers just to be able to use mobile devices and connectivity. In 2014 there were 21% who were willing to do so whereas in 2015 this number climbed up to 37%." [2]

As the research shows people want better mobile connectivity inside their cars. Since 5g is a new standard with few real world deployments access points inside the cars would make it a very attractive package. However there are numerous hurdles

1. 5g deployments are expensive. New equipment needs to be manufactured to create embedded access points inside cars.

2. 5G is a licensed spectrum. If the technology is going to be used inside the cars automakers will need to apply for a licence. Or work with licence acquirers. (It will not be too far fetched to imagine for example a Vodafone car in the future) However this does put small vehicle manufactures at a very big disadvantage for a long time.

3. 5G is a cell phone network. It is deigned and optimized for use in mobile phones (with some afterthought to IOT). Aside from the fact that a car is not a mobile phone who is going to bear the cost of data? Or put in other words why does a connected car network need a telephone network? It is understandable that the telephone operators want to put a sim card in any electronic device they can to increase their revenue but should there be not a comparable benefit to the subscriber of the network? Should a car owner pay the phone bill for his car as well? Do car manufacturers want to build car-as-a-service?

This brings me to ask

What makes any standard effective?

The implementation of the standard. HTTP is an effective standard not because it a protocol defined in research papers but it has been adopted by the community.

It has not been adopted by the community because it is a protocol defined in a paper but because client applications have implemented it.

The client applications implemented HTTP not because it was the invention of smart folks who wrote effective research papers but because it would be easier to gain the support of the community to build applications for the client.

What is the most effective wireless standard in use today?

It is wifi. It is available everywhere. Even in $7 feature phones. It is also free of cost.

What are the deficiencies of wifi in the connected car scenario?

No information car to car exchange can take place unless

- Either both the devices are connected to the same base station

- Or The devices are paired with each other.

Wifi direct seems to solve this problem but it is not well implemented in client devices. And even if the hardware support it new software will have to be written to get it to work as expected.

How can we work with these shortcomings?

Easily. While direct p2p communication is difficult on a physical layer. Several hundred application layer services exist that enable p2p communication. Any linux device with a network card can run a p2p service for efficient communication.

Do we need 5g in cars?

>If we mandate only an older technology like Wi-Fi 802.11p and exclude a future-proof one like 5G, we put Europe behind global peers like the U.S., South Korea and China.” [1]

A G network can hardly be called future proof. Over the decades there have been 5 revisions already with each revision requiring a device upgrade from the client.

Wifi on the other hand has been more stable. It is a well understood technology that works everywhere. All wifi enabled device work the same way. A lot of knowledge has been built on how to operate and configure a wifi network.

Additionally wifi networks don't require a skilled worker. Even novice users understand and are able to use it.

Despite all the advantages of 5g, Wifi is the true technology and vendor neutral solution for all kinds of connected infrastructure technologies.

[1] https://etno.eu/news/all-news/8-news/454-cad-lead-or-lose.ht...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connected_car#Trends