Cars With Wi-Fi Hitting the New Information Highway

(Businessweek) — Consumers don’t want to leave home without their wireless devices, allowing connectivity to be offered in places today that seemed unheard of just a handful of years ago. The trend will only accelerate as carmakers see an “option-tunity” for Wi-Fi in automobiles. Research firm iSuppli predicts integrated Wi-Fi systems in 7.2 million cars by 2017, a more than 40-fold increase from the 174,000 connected cars expected to hit the roads this year. Wi-Fi by itself is less useful than mobile broadband, however, and the auto industry is taking different routes to accomplish full connectivity for the cars of tomorrow.

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