The GSMA has announced partnerships with organisations in the automotive and aviation sectors to understand their connectivity needs and support the development of connectivity that enhances safety, efficiency and customer experience.

Organisations partnering the GSMA on these collaborations include the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), Japan Automotive Software Platform & Architecture (Jaspar), Outsight, Safran Passenger Innovations, and Seamless Air Alliance. This builds on a similar cooperation partnership signed with the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium in October last year.

Within the GSMA, these activities will be led by GSMA Fusion, the organisation’s recently formed initiative, established to listen directly to the voice of enterprises at an industry level and to identify unmet needs that today’s networks can provide. As part of the GSMA Open Gateway, Fusion works with industries such as automotive, aviation, financial services, manufacturing, media and others to accelerate demand for 5G API-based and other options, and to deliver transformative services for enterprises.

“The partnerships, through GSMA Fusion, provide strong direction from these industries to ours, helping the mobile ecosystem truly meet the needs of the automotive and aviation sectors and harness the power of mobile connectivity to create innovations that enhance safety, efficiency and customer experience,” said Mats Granryd, director general of the GSMA. “When we launched the GSMA Open Gateway initiative at MWC Barcelona two years ago, we stated our ambition to unlock the full potential of 5G networks for all industries through universal access and open APIs, and the partnership just announced is a step in that direction.”

Collaborations with Seamless Air Alliance, Outsight and Safran Passenger Innovations will aim to improve efficiency, safety and customer satisfaction in the aviation sector. These partnerships will explore the potential of 5G technology to enable in-flight connectivity, real-time aircraft diagnostics, predictive maintenance and improved flight path optimisation. Additional focus areas will be seamless in-flight connectivity and smarter airports with full passenger journey monitoring, with automated check-ins, AR navigation and better baggage tracking.

The GSMA partnerships with 5GAA and Jaspar, in addition to the partnership with AECC, will focus on integrating connectivity to drive innovation in autonomous driving, smart cities and mobility. By leveraging 5G technology, the automotive sector can enhance safety, efficiency and sustainability, paving the way for the future of transportation.

Launched two years ago, the GSMA Open Gateway (www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/gsma-open-gateway) is an initiative that ensures mobile operators can provide enterprise developers standardised access to a range of network functions used to create applications and services. By bringing together operators from around the world, the initiative facilitates the design of digital products that can function seamlessly across all devices, regardless of country or operator. This is achieved through APIs that serve as gateways to information about network capabilities. These APIs are available through the Camara repository, an open-source project supported by Linux Foundation, GSMA and TM Forum.

More than 72 mobile operator groups, representing 284 networks and almost 80% of mobile connections across the world have already signed up to participate in the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, with 52 commercial launches taking place.

The GSMA (gsma.com) is showcasing further GSMA Open Gateway and Fusion (membership.gsma.com/gsma-fusion-showcase) activity at this week’s MWC in Barcelona.