"The communications services for the automotive really have yet to be launched in future. Now the car is like a personal computer isolated." AQUABIT Tanaka, chief operations planner-to-vehicle communications services frequently made veiled criticisms of the current situation. - Vehicle information service "Telematics Service" by the auto giants had started in 2002, up to now has about six years.

Honda's "Internavi Premium Club" provides the traffic congestion information sharing among users of the service ahead of the other companies. Users also give praise close line display to destination as quickly as possible. Toyota's "G-BOOK" in 2007, first published in the industry for vehicle navigation map data update service. Omit the user to update the map of the stores in trouble. Nissan through "CARWINGS", provided by operators of car navigation systems proposed methods of operation, meticulous service devoted to the full. It can be said that the company's services have reached a certain level.

However, the communications module for vehicles due to the low-speed communication restrictions, in fact use a limited range. In addition to Toyota Motor by KDDI's "CDMA2000 1xEV-DO" (2.4Mbps), Honda and Nissan car manufacturers have adopted the PHS WILLCOM card (32 kbps). Communication costs, the company has recently introduced a monthly subscription system, about a month to 1,000 yen. It can be said that the company has been in the communications environment exists under the constraints of the situation, the expansion of content and services. Then turning to the family, based on the number of optical fiber and ADSL access Mbps permanent environment in Japan has improved. It cost several thousand yen per month. In the city it can also carry out 54 Mbps wireless LAN communications. Environmental standards and automotive communications are quite different.

Although the vehicle communications environment exists harsh restrictions, it also shows new trends. In the period 2009 to 2010, for the automotive and mobile terminals of large-capacity communication services, "mobile WiMAX" is expected to reach practical level. To be equivalent to the wireless LAN and ADSL M ~ a few tens of Mbps speed communications. As long as the vehicle to support WiMAX, it can exchange large-capacity video content with infrastructure on the road such as servers or other vehicles.

In the rear seat to watch DVD player had only limited to senior models before, but in the future, as long as the support of WiMAX, all vehicles will also be able to use this feature. Even without portable DVD, or feel free to download images from an external server to watch.

Vehicle information service is constrained by the communications environment, so it' s in a "dream" stage for a long time. As the