AT&T is launching new Innovation Centers in Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas to speed up innovation in Digital Life, connected car, connected devices, home entertainment and machine-to-machine technologies.
The AT&T Foundry in Atlanta, which is adjacent to Georgia Tech, will test and develop products and services for Digital Life, AT&T’s recently-launched home security and automation service. The team will also create new apps and services related to the “connected car,” mobility, emerging devices, and AT&T U-verse. Cisco will be host sponsor and will help identify key third-party developers, startups, investors, inventors and other entrepreneurs to bring into the facility.
The new AT&T Foundry Machine-to-Machine and Connected Device (M2M/CD) center in Plano, Texas will focus on platforms, infrastructure and tools for M2M.
“Since its founding three years ago, the mission of the AT&T Foundry® has been to identify great ideas, put the right people and technology ecosystem around them and move them quickly to market,” said John Donovan, Senior Executive Vice President of AT&T Technology and Network Operations, AT&T Inc. “As a result, our customers are benefitting from great products and services that set the pace for innovation and our company is realizing more enhanced efficiencies internally.
The AT&T Foundry program was launched in 2010 to identify solutions both inside and outside of AT&T to some of the most pressing needs facing the company and the industry. Some innovations that have resulted include the broad deployment of Self-Optimizing Network (SON) technology throughout the AT&T network through a collaboration Intucell. The idea was first introduced to AT&T via a “fast pitch” in collaboration with Amdocs and then honed at the AT&T Foundry. Another innovation is Remote Patient Monitoring (doctors and other caregivers remotely monitoring a patient’s pulse rate, weight and other parameters over an LTE connection) and SafeCell (an app for fleet managers to monitor and restrict drivers’ use of mobile devices while behind the wheel).
