Spanish operator details near-term innovation strategy; demonstrates multiple uses for its M2M platform.
Telefonica has revealed plans to evolve electric vehicle charging points and its own telephone booth real estate into “multimedia boxes” that incorporate Internet connectivity and Machine to Machine (M2M) management technology.
“We have a lot of this furniture (telephone boxes),” Guillermo Bataller López, responsible for transformation and innovation projects at Telefonica’s Corporate Innovation Centre in Barcelona, said last week.
“Why not use these to improve the life of the consumer?”
López predicted that in the near future charging points for electric vehicles could also be used to provide high-speed Internet access to connected vehicles.
It could “not only recharge energy, but recharge documents,” by synchronising files stored in a vehicle with a customer’s information backed up in the cloud, López explained.
Furthermore, the “multimedia box” could be M2M-enabled to help Telefonica monitor electricity consumption and identify usage trends using its partner Jasper Wireless’ M2M monitoring platform.
In October, Telefonica UK began the process of combining all these technologies by installing SIM cards into electric vehicle charging station provider Chargemaster’s charging points, allowing customers to authenticate their identity quickly via the mobile network.
He said Telefonica aims to release its enhanced charging station as soon as possible, but admitted that its launch schedule is also dependent upon vehicle manufactures and governments.
Meanwhile Telefonica also demonstrated how its partnership with Jasper Wireless could also be used for a variety of services, such as traffic management or localised adverts inside buses.
By linking monitors inside the bus to the network using M2M technology, adverts can be targeted based on the GPS or base station location data – or “zero location”, López explained.
Furthermore, “In the future we will have a screen in every seat that you can [control by] touch, why not?” López predicted.
