The world is witnessing an accelerated push toward faster and more efficient wireless networks, we hear every day about the inevitable shift towards 5G networks, and the car industry is no stranger to that.
All major car companies have been using wireless networks in their cars for various purposes, safety features and entertainment for example are reliant on wireless network. But this fact has created an unexpected problem. It seems that the network innovation has outpaced the car’s industry, which rendered some fairly new cars obsolete.
The problem has become obvious when cellular carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and others have announced their plans to phase out the 3g network this year, with the furthest date set on December 31 for Verizon. all in favor for the implementation of the faster and more powerful 5G.
Now this have left car owners high and dry, what to do when your car’s network related systems just stop working?
Car-makers carry some blame for this situation, as they insisted on using cheap 3g hardware in new cars despite numerous notices and warnings from cellular caries and other agencies.
Now the proposed solutions varied depending on the brand. And here’s a quick summary of what car drivers can do, depending on which car they own:
Acura, proposed the possibility to install new devices, compatible with 4g network and also announced a new offer with an interesting discount to buy a new car equipped with modern hardware
With Audi, BMW, Porsche, Stallantis and Tesla proposing the same possibility for hardware upgrade but still depending on which models, as some of them cannot be modified, like Volkswagen that announced that the hardware upgrade will be possible only on the models produced between 2017-2019.
Other brands like GM, Honda and Subaru are relying on “over-the-air” software to make the car compatible with 4g network.
Jaguar Land rover, says that they are prioritizing the safety features, and in order to keep them functional they will be downgraded to operate on 2G network. But that’s still a momentary solution as the 2G network will be phased out too.
Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan infinity and Toyota Lexus are all still silent on this matter, perhaps taking their time to work out a more radical solution.
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