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Mobility has increased manifold, be it for business or pleasure, and convenience during travel is being facilitated by the Information and Communication Technology ecosystem powered by various fast-developing technologies. The technology platform has democratised mobility. A vibrant discussion on Enabling Citizen Services during Smart Mobility Conference 2023, looked at ICT offerings to enable citizen services.
India is in the top five countries for LTE availability and the highest in the world for data consumption. It is around 20 GB per broadband subscriber per month, exceeding South Korea, which is almost half the consumption, despite their having 5G. There is a huge capacity in citizens to utilize digital services, and mobility enables the movement of labour, money and assets in a developing economy. It remains to be seen how the automobile sector will exploit and leverage the availability of connectivity, not just pan India but also globally.
In the last two years the shortage of vehicles in India was not because of unavailability of fuel, engines or steel, it was because of paucity of chips. Integrated circuits are part of any smart device be it a mobile phone, car or an airplane. Nothing moves today without electronics and chips are integral components of IC.
Bharat B Bhatia
Benefits of standardisation
During the period of GSM and CDMA, one device could not talk to the other, which is not the case today. Standardisation was the underlying platform over which all connectivity solutions for vehicle to X had to develop. Most standardisation bodies have adopted 3GPP, LTE and 5G standards. The automobile sector would need to extract the benefits of 5G which permitted data to be moved around. It was however, incumbent on the automobile sector to develop services for V2X, vehicle to infrastructure and others. Much of this development would have to be based on infrastructure on the cloud.
Origin of standardisation of mobile services
Nothing moves today without the proper electronics, IT or the chips that go into the device. Equally important are spectrum and standards. The mobile revolution began in the mid-80s, and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) started thinking about Future Public Land Mobile Telecommunication Service (FPLMTS), also known as 4G or 5G. The international collaboration on the development of these standards of mobile services was first driven from the FPLMTS thought process in a meeting in Canada. This led to standards progressively from 1G, GSM, 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G.
India and 5G
India, though starting behind the world by three to four years, has adopted 5G with mind-boggling speed. Currently 5G services are available from 3,60,000 base stations in the country only for mobile services. This has given rise to other enabling technologies like the UPI which has made electronic payments simple. On the vehicle side, one of the standards implemented globally was Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC), the predecessor technology to smart mobility. Today, CV2X is riding on 4G and 5G standards enabling people to connect to cars, driverless driving, automated vehicle movement, safety and environment protection, all using the inbuilt infrastructure of the cellular network. India has adopted CV2X as the official standard, leaping ahead of other countries by five years. This gives India a major advantage in that it has technology that can take it to the next generation of mobile communication for vehicles.
Taking the lead in 6G
India has started working towards implementing 6G standard by 2030. The aim is to be a global leader in manufacturing, innovation, software and hardware, all possible with the use of technology in implementing the standard.
Key technologies – CV2X
CV2X, which is based on 3GPP standards and beginning from Release 14, is one key technology that is standardised in all layers, making it interoperable. In terms of Releases 14, 15 and 16, there are two parts to this technology. One is CV2X direct communication which is based on the 5.9 GHz band and the other is CV2X over cellular communication which is based on 4G or the 5G standards. Both are complementary to each other when it comes to implementation of applications.
Global organisations like the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), are working with the telecom service providers and auto OEMs to enable a common set of applications which can be deployed at scale globally. 5GAA has clearly indicated which CV2X use cases can make complementary use of direct and the cellular modes of communication. Some use cases could be utilized a hybrid way and some exclusively by one or other mode of communication. This clarity would ensure higher level of adoption of CV2X by the industry.
