Cisco Envisions Standard Network for Connecting Car Computers

By Karla Robinson
September 27, 2012

Networking giant Cisco has started up a new team to “essentially re-imagine the way that onboard [car] systems connect,” reports Wired.
“We literally have reached out to every car company in the world,” says Helder Antunes, managing director of Cisco’s smart connected vehicles division. “What we would really like to do is to help standardize on the underlying networking platform and then allow them to innovate on the top.”
Cars use computers to operate digital devices like door locks, sensors or in-car televisions, but there isn’t a standard network for connecting these computers.
“The payoff would be a more connected car — one that can switch from 4G to wireless networks while simultaneously streaming a YouTube video to kids in the back without so much as a hiccup,” the article states.
“It would be a car that could get firmware updates over the air, and it would also be a lighter vehicle — one that used wireless connections and lighter Ethernet cables. In fact, Antunes thinks that a Cisco ‘Connected Vehicle’ could easily strip 70 to 80 pounds of cabling out of the car.”
Antunes’s team of 20 has already developed anti-crash systems using the Dedicated Short Range Communications car-to-car data-sharing protocol as well as prototyped a wireless system for police and firefighters. But the group may find it challenging to make their car network ubiquitous, due to the supply-chain complexity involved in developing automobiles.

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