As in-car connected services take off and automotive manufacturers seek to forge relationships with third-party providers, Cubic Telecom’s PLXOR data classification service is quickly becoming a ‘must-have’ rather than ‘nice to have’ solution. PLXOR provides a way to maximise opportunities as new business models emerge and take shape.
At Cubic, our conversations with carmakers have always been about enabling global connected software solutions, cutting through time and complexity – regulatory as well as technical – to deliver new vehicles to markets with in-car connectivity services ready to go. In the first wave, we pioneered eSIM connectivity from the point of manufacture. Now the demand is for optimized visibility throughout the lifecycle of services.
Global service visibility
PLXOR provides service level identification and differentiation for multiple use cases, including infotainment and telemetry, giving carmakers a level of visibility that will inform partnership choices, business models, and their overarching strategy for in-car services. As part of Cubic’s Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications strategy, PLXOR is another stepping-stone on the way to transforming cars into autonomous digital platforms.
Until now, carmakers have delivered music streaming services where they only had a billing relationship with the provider, with no real idea of the application’s usage levels or its value to the end customer. Essentially, they have been working blind in a burgeoning marketplace that they need to be in the middle of. The carmaker risks missing out on new revenue opportunities and finding themselves, quite literally, as just a vehicle for other company’s services.
Without a global connected software solution, carmakers have had to negotiate with mobile operators on a country-by-country basis, where split-billing capabilities could be determined by how many APNs their PDN gateway could support. It all adds to the complexities for carmakers, making it difficult to manage multiple revenue streams across an ecosystem of evolving services.
Real-time information
Cubic has relationships in place with global operators and provides connected software as a one-stop global solution. PLXOR adds another layer of value, particularly when it’s used as an add-on to PACE, our platform for device management and service orchestration.
PLXOR shows usage information in real-time – not something all operators will share – including frequency, time of day and location. Carmakers can begin to gather insights into the stickiness of the services they are facilitating; they can see how demand might vary across different demographics, aligned to the customer’s choice of make and model of car, for example, and across different countries.
We provide an independent view of network traffic and facilitate access to business critical telematics and other data without seeing it ourselves. Business-sensitive data remains the sole preserve of the carmaker. By segmenting data on infotainment, navigation and telemetry at a service level, carmakers can make more informed decisions about go-to-market strategies and partnering with third-party providers.
Ensuring service quality
PLXOR also routes traffic in a way that works best for the service. Cubic is part of the software revolution that is transforming networks though virtualisation, replacing physical routers and hardware, often the cause of single points of failure.
An example of NFV (Network Functions Virtualization), PLXOR can identify traffic at a service level and route it accordingly to ensure carmakers optimise in-car connected services. By classifying traffic and identifying where quality of service counts more, PLXOR can route a particular service over a VPN rather than the public internet, for example, and because it’s all virtualised, it’s easy to make changes or scale.
Armed with granular information from PLXOR, carmakers can start to make more informed decisions around third-party partnerships, split-billing, or identify where quality of service demands a better connection. Essentially, it’s part of Cubic’s broader portfolio of connected software solutions that helps put connected vehicle manufacturers in control and at the epicentre of a fast-evolving service ecosystem.
If you would like to learn more about PLXOR please get in touch with our Sales Team today.
