Adding connectivity to PND is last years news, what else is on the line?
I asked Stephane Dejean from Jasper Wireless to give me a quick run through as he just worked on the recent deal with AT&T:

What benefit does the M2M connectivity infrastructure bring to AT&T?

Three major benefits:

• Low support costs : AT&T immediately benefits from full range of automated, real-time features to manage customers – provisioning, support, SIM management, billing.

• Innovative business models: AT&T is able to offer innovative and different business models using our flexible and fully configurable billing engine.

• Greater differentiation: The best Connected Device Platform built on top of the best GSM network in the US provides a powerful offer to customers.  The combined solution enables customers to get a turnkey solution for connecting devices quickly and profitably.

 

What type of device in the consumer market can benefit from the combined AT&T/ Jasper service?  How will that differ from the iPhone or the Dash device?

Nearly every type of connected device can benefit from this combined solution. Companies (manufacturers and service providers) face new challenges when they attempt to build a connected device business.  Embedding connectivity and delivering new content while bringing the best customer experience are key challenges for an industry that are still learning which business models will yield the highest revenue. The differences lay in each step of the product life cycle: product design, testing, logistics, product + service reselling, real-time & live customer experience, and customer support for connected services. Every device manufacturer seeking to embed connectivity faces these challenges and that is that is why the combined AT&T and Jasper solution is valuable to a range of device types - e.g. Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), Set Top Boxes (STBs), Portable Games Consoles (PGCs), Digital Photo Frames (DPFs), Digital Still Cameras (DSCs), Portable Media Players (PMPs), e-Book readers (e-Readers), Consumer Netbooks, Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs), Ultra-Mobile Devices (UMDs) - as we bring the key applications to make things easier at each step and optimize end-customer satisfaction.

 
What kind of bandwidth could be fed to a PND using Jasper connectivity - enough to support search, social networking, downloading city guides or touristic videos?

The platform capabilities are not tied to the bandwidth. Depending on the vertical targeted (B2B – usual M2M needs) or B2C (consumer electronics, home automation, healthcare), AT&T will be able to offer the appropriate bandwidth to meet the application needs. Application fine-tuning, data exchanges optimisation and device certification are some ways to optimise bandwidth needs and control connectivity costs. For consumer applications, we will undoubtedly see high-speed bandwidth used for some applications (content download, real-time video …).

 
Is network-based location supported by the Jasper wireless platform?

Our platform does not currently commercially offer network location-based solution but is able to integrate it for our operator partners that offer it.

So when are we going to see Laptop, camera or game console with GPS? Anybody?