By 2030, up to 95% of all new vehicles will be connected, according to McKinsey*. These aren’t just cars with navigation or apps. They are software-defined platforms on wheels, constantly exchanging data, receiving updates, transmitting diagnostics, and increasingly interacting with smart infrastructure and other vehicles. Yet while vehicles have evolved, the way they connect to mobile networks has not.
Most car data today, as well as IoT traffic, still flows through centralized, home-routed roaming architectures. These systems were never designed to handle the demands of real-time telematics, regulatory compliance, or the performance requirements of 5G. As a result, many connected vehicles experience latency of 200 milliseconds or more. That figure may sound small, but it has serious consequences for safety, user experience, and innovation.
The Challenge: Cars Are Mobile and Gateways Should Be Too
Traditional roaming forces vehicle data to travel long distances, often across continents, before it reaches its endpoint. A car in Southeast Asia, for example, might send data back to a packet gateway in Europe before it is processed. This creates several issues:
- Latency that disrupts telemetry, diagnostics, and infotainment
- High operational costs due to unnecessary backhaul
- Regulatory risk in markets with strict data localization laws
For connected car platforms operating globally, these challenges multiply with each new region or original equipment manufacturer (OEM) deployment.
A Smarter Alternative: Roaming Hub-Breakout
Roaming Hub-Breakout enables local and regional data breakout at the edge, much closer to where the vehicle is located. Instead of routing traffic through a distant central core, data is offloaded via distributed packet gateways in global hubs such as Singapore, Dallas, and Amsterdam, with a new PoP launched in Tokyo, Japan. This approach delivers:
- Sub-100 millisecond latency for seamless performance
- Reduced operational costs through efficient routing
- Real-time scalability to support fleet growth and mobility patterns
- Faster time to market for new regions
- Compliance with national data regulations
Not Just for Cars: Fleets, EVs, and Beyond
While Roaming Hub-Breakout is a critical enabler for connected cars, its benefits extend across the broader mobility and IoT ecosystem:
- Fleet telematics: Real-time performance tracking, predictive maintenance, and smarter logistics
- Electric vehicles: Battery health monitoring, regulatory reporting, and uninterrupted cross-border connectivity
- Smart mobility infrastructure: Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication in smart city environments
As expectations for real-time data and global service coverage rise, HBOaaS provides the flexible, high-performance backbone needed to meet them.
Why It Matters Now
The connected car market is scaling quickly and is predicted to more than double to over $26 billion by 2030**. Meanwhile, around nine out of 10 connected cars sold*** in 2030 will have embedded 5G capability.
At the same time, legacy networks like 2G and 3G are sunsetting, and operators are transitioning to 5G Standalone. These shifts are exposing the limitations of home-routing models and creating opportunities for more intelligent connectivity approaches.
For mobile operators, Roaming Hub-Breakout opens new paths to new monetization streams, while meeting performance and compliance demands from automotive and IoT partners.
Latency matters more than ever. In mobility, every millisecond can affect the quality of service, the reliability of an application, or even the safety of a driver.
Roaming Hub-Breakout offers the architecture that modern vehicles and services require. It supports the transition from static, centralized infrastructure to a dynamic, distributed model built for performance, scale, and compliance.
Discover how iBASIS’ Roaming Hub-Breakout can cut your latency and scale your reach.