Chrysler is turning some of its U.S. cars and trucks into wireless hot spots. No word yet when, or if, such a service will be made available in Australia.
The company announced Thursday, US time, a new feature that will let people purchase a Uconnect in-car wireless system as part of a dealer upgrade in 20 Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep models. The Uconnect router is priced at US$449 excluding installation, while the accompanying Autonet Mobile 3G internet service costs US$29 a month.
The system offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity within the car to allow people to sync their mobile phone address books with the car's 30GB hard drive or control their Apple iPods using the radio and steering wheel controls. And it provides navigation and real-time traffic features that can be controlled by voice recognition or a touch screen.
Using a mobile phone network, the Wi-Fi hot spot can also be connected to the internet, allowing passengers to use their laptops to surf the Web. Other Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, should also be able to use the in-car Wi-Fi to connect to the internet.
Using Wi-Fi as the Internet access technology inside the car is a good idea, since many every consumer electronic devices these days has a Wi-Fi chip embedded. Wi-Fi is also shipped as a standard feature in most, if not, all laptops today. By contrast, the market for pre-installed 3G wireless in laptops has been relatively small.
We saw a similar in-car wireless system work with WiMax as part of an Intel/Motorola sponsored demonstration at CTIA in Las Vegas earlier this year. Although the purpose of the demo was to show how well WiMax works, it nonetheless used Wi-Fi inside the car to connect laptops and other Wi-Fi-enabled devices to the Net using WiMax.
Turning a car into a hot spot was pretty cool and we were able to access Web sites and listen to a Web re-broadcast of National Public Radio's Morning Edition. It was also easy to access Google Maps on the Web for navigation. And in this particular demo they showed how video could be streamed to watch movies on demand. Of course, Chrysler's system uses a 3G mobile network instead of a high-speed WiMax network, so streaming audio and video won't likely work well but it's still a very cool feature.
Success for this feature isn't guaranteed though, as petrol prices in the Land of the Free have surpassed US$4 a gallon (AU$1.13 per litre) and the economy has hit the skids, car sales are already in a slump. If current trends continue, consumers will likely be more interested in getting better fuel economy than an in-car Wi-Fi system with internet service that charges a monthly fee.
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