Data to ride shotgun: InfoMove helps connect cars to Internet

The Kelsey Group estimates that Americans spend 500 million hours in their cars each week. While some drivers pass the time with music, books on tape or quiet reflection, others prefer to be more productive.

This is what start-up InfoMove is banking on. Targeting the car as the next major growth opportunity for wireless Internet content, the company has designed a system that uses wireless networks to allow drivers and passengers to instantly receive personalized information. The company intends to team with portals, palm-sized PC makers, wireless carriers and automotive manufacturers, acting as a transparent layer between them and end users.

The wireless operator is an imperative piece in the puzzle, said Brook Lang, founder and chairman of InfoMove. The wireless operator brings together the different components, from the end device of choice to the delivery of content.

Combining Internet, wireless via cellular digital packet data (CDPD), automotive, global positioning system (GPS) and text-to-speech technologies, InfoMove intends to help carriers deliver Internet information via wireless while consumers commute. According to the company's plan, drivers can place their palm-sized PC, hand-held PC or Internet-ready wireless phone in a cradle in their cars. They then receive personalized content instantly, including real-time traffic advisories, audible directions, vehicle diagnostics and maintenance alerts, emergency services, location-based advertising and text-to-speech e-mail capabilities.

"This will be the second gold rush for wireless carriers," Lang said. "They can add another item on the bill for connecting [via packets] every person that already has wireless voice service."

Automobile-based applications could offer a new market for CDPD networks, which have experienced slow takeup outside of very vertical applications. One reason for the low use of data networks such as CDPD has been lack of content. InfoMove can open the door for wireless operators to a new segment of data use.

InfoMove is in discussion with most of the major wireless carriers and plans to have some contracts by the first quarter of next year. By July or August, customers will be able to download personalized information to an end device from the company's Web site, Lang said.

Bell Atlantic Mobile is keeping wireless data services such as in-vehicle applications in its sights. "We believe there is a pent-up demand for information to be delivered not just in cars but to mobile devices in general," said Debra Carroll, vice president of marketing for BAM. "People on the go can be more efficient by accessing information such as weather and directions as well as more interactive applications such as making restaurant, lodging and travel reservations."

Although not familiar with InfoMove's technology, a spokesman for AT&T Wireless said that for AT&T to support such a service, the wireless data system in the car would require voice activation to ensure safety.

"Voice recognition would be good if the technology is proven," he said. In the past, it was difficult to apply voice recognition technology in noisy environments, such as cars, because the technology could not distinguish between the voice and background noise.

Although AT&T Wireless is confident about wireless data and open to looking into different solutions, such as that from InfoMove, it will not move in the automotive direction unless safety and technology issues are ironed out.

Wireless Internet is a "killer application, for which all pieces have yet to be put together, said Ira Brodsky, president of Datacomm Research. "[Carriers] have to discern between what might be compelling to end users and what is not," he said.

But he questions who will pay for this extra service. "A lot of people may pass on it because it is another check to write," he said. That may depend, however, on how wireless operators decide to price data services. If operators price data services in a bucket, using InfoMove would be just another data application included in the package. In the next three to four years, carriers will offer an unlimited wireless Internet connection for about $19.95 per month, Lang said.

The perpetual movers and shakers want what InfoMove has, Lang said, and the enabling pieces will be in place soon. In fact, he estimates that by 2005, every new car and many existing cars in the U.S. will have Internet-enabled devices as standard equipment.

Lang may be a bit optimistic, though.

"2005 is unrealistic considering that the pace of inserting equipment into cars is not on Internet time," said Scott Andrews, a project general manager at Toyota. Andrews has helped the car manufacturer develop a multimedia network strategy - first in Japan and now in the U.S.

"If we built a car like a PC, it would cost $100,000," Andrews said. Though 2005 may be a fair estimate of when hardware will be suitable for a car, getting it into the car may take until 2006, he said. "The car industry does not move that fast, while Internet guys work on a different time schedule."

Although many cars may have Internet interfaces such as Bluetooth by 2005, it will take a while longer until wireless Internet capabilities will have an impact on all drivers, Andrews said. "I do question ubiquity, not the trend," he said. But, if Bluetooth becomes standard in vehicles, consumers will be able to connect to the Internet without the use of a cradle.

Internet connectivity will begin in cars as an option, Andrews said. "While eventually there will be certain standard aspects, I cannot imagine every vehicle will be connected to the Internet."

The main reason is cost. Paying more for wireless Internet access while in the car as opposed to getting everything at the office may make this application a hard sell. "If I can do all of the same stuff at my desk instead of my car, what is the difference other than spending more money to put it in my car?" Andrews asked.

Even though some are skeptical of connecting cars to the Internet, similar services have met with success. For the past three years, GM has been offering its OnStar assistance service to provide operations-based services in cars where a cell phone is connected to a GPS receiver. The service has attracted about 70,000 subscribers, with 1 million expected to have it in the next year. Such rampant growth will continue as applications multiply and consumers demand them.