First In-Car Broadband Announced by Ford

 

The record for the first car manufacturer to develop a broadband system that would fit perfectly in the dashboard of the vehicle would now go to the Ford Motor Company, as it is in the final stages of realising this dream that although would only be availed in the United States of America initially. For achieving this, Ford has struck a tie-up with Opera, the software installation company.

The vehicles that would hit the road offering the customers broadband options are expected to be, at least for the time being, a few commercial vehicles like the Ford E-Series vehicles, Ford Transit Connect trucks, Super Duty vehicles of Ford as well as the Ford F-150.

The hardware for the in-car broadband scheme of Ford would be manufactured by Magneti Marelli, an Italy-based hardware firm, and the operating system that would act as the interface between the driver and the broadband would be the Auto Operating System of  Microsoft. The browser that comes preloaded in the system would be the Opera Mini browser.

Another software advantage offered to the system by the software firm is the remote accessing capability through an application called LogMeln Pro. Other features of the system are; a touchscreen of 6.5” diagonal size, a wireless keyboard, a USB port and a 4GB memory that can be further extended using its secure digital SD card slot.

The in car broadband system of Ford, which is conveniently termed as the Work Solutions device can easily get fitted into the slot in the car intented for a car radio or music system. The Work Solutions device, apart from all these would initially accompany an offer of an onboard mobile inkjet printer that is battery and bluetooth powered.

As a matter of fact, it was Chrysler who, among the car manufacturers had announced first its plans on launching broadband facilitated vehicles. It had, last year hinted that it would launch such vehicles in the UK.