Telefónica, world’s leading telecommunications service provider and recognized industry leader in the Internet of Things space, announced its active participation in the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA). The company joins a group of other leading telecommunications and automotive companies with the objective of accelerating the penetration of mobility services such as connected and autonomous car and intelligent road infrastructures.

The association main activities include defining use cases, selecting technology and establishing way ahead, initiating standardization, addressing specific needs of vehicle-to-x in terms of connectivity and leading innovation and development projects. Along with this initiative, Telefónica is also actively participating in the European Automotive-Telecom Alliance (EATA) which objective is to promote the wider deployment of connected and automated driving in Europe.

Dino Flore, General Director of the 5GAA: “We are very excited to have Telefónica as new member of 5GAA. Telefónica expertise and background will greatly benefit the association in its mission to define truly global, end-to-end connected mobility solutions”

Telefónica has been working in the connected car space for several years now and has communications and IoT solutions deployed in a large number of vehicles in several countries around the globe.

Furthermore, the company, in cooperation with Ericsson, presented the world´s first 5G remote driving concept at MWC proving certain aspects of this technology, such as reliability, high speed and low latency, which will transform the automotive industry.

As Vicente Muñoz, Telefonica´s Chief IoT Officer says: “We are delighted to join the 5GAA to bring all our efforts on the 5G technology to the automotive industry. We recently showcased our recent progress in 5G with our connected car demo at MWC in Barcelona and continue to work in this arena to make things move faster”.