The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) and ETSI have announced a co-operation agreement under which the latter will formally consider the former’s MirrorLink method of publishing data on car dashboards as an ETSI Technical Specification (TS).

The CCC-ETSI accord was signed on November 17th at the 66th ETSI General Assembly meeting in Sophia Antipolis.

MirrorLink is designed for maximum interoperability between a wide range of smartphones and cars. It uses large icons to communicate information to car drivers from mobiles onto the dashboard. The rationale is to present information as clearly and unequivocably as possible, in order to avoid distracting drivers and endangering all road users. It also contains smart technology that can detect whether a vehicle is parked or in motion.

The CCC has argued that MirrorLink should become a standard as it is the only operating system and OEM independent technology for car to smartphone connectivity, since no single manufacturers has a controlling stake.

The ETSI organisation’s standards underpin many of the connected world’s most widely-used technologies, such as GSM, DECT, smart cards and electronic signatures. In connected transport industries ETSI has united stakeholders behind its Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Technical Committee, which is pushing for global standards. Two specifications of ETSI ITS committee are now published as European standards.

The CCC’s 100 members represent 70% of the world’s auto market and 70% of the global smartphone market and many top consumer electronics vendors.

“MirrorLink’s capacity to increase safety on today’s roads makes it a compelling candidate for ETSI’s portfolio of standards,” said ETSI Director-General Luis Jorge Romero.

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