AT&T launches 5G-enabled IoT, inks connected car deal with GM

AT&T launches 5G-enabled IoT, inks connected car deal with GM

After a raft of announcements from rival wireless providers, AT&T has chimed in with two interesting edge and 5G moves of its own. Firstly, it’s teaming up with Cisco and opening up the sub-6GHz 5G frequency to customers of its Control Center IoT cloud management platform. This will result in 5G speeds for IoT services.

The Control Center service, which runs on top of Cisco’s Jasper software, is already used to provide visibility of millions of IoT devices running on the AT&T network, according to the company.

By opening up the service to 5G networks, AT&T says that blue light services such as emergency responders using the product will find the improved response times and greater security provided by 5G IoT very useful. The carrier also mentioned two familiar use cases—connected cars and manufacturing sites—as environments where the product could bring benefits.

AT&T’s second announcement concerned one of those use cases: the connected car. AT&T has inked its first 5G connected car deal with General Motors. Starting from 2024, all new GM cars including household names such as Buicks, Cadillacs and Chevys will be 5G-enabled. In-vehicle entertainment along with over-the-air software updates are becoming crucial services for modern automobiles, and faster connectivity is an imperative rather than an optional feature these days.

GM already partnered with AT&T for previous generations of its OnStar and Connected Services, which are used by more than 16 million customers in the U.S. and Canada. Since the launch of 4G LTE in 2014, GM owners have used more than 171 million gigabytes of data across its brands, GM reported.

The year 2024 might seem a little later than expected for 5G-enabled cars, but the 5G rollout in the US has been a little slower than expected and AT&T and GM are probably waiting to see 5G network and technologies mature.

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