Car Sharing Connectivity: What Happens to Your Fleet When a Mobile Network Fails

Table of Content

• What a Network Outage Means for Car Sharing Operators
• Behind the Scenes of a Network Outage
• How a Multi-Network Setup Keeps Vehicles Online
• Additional Layers That Protect Your Fleet

What a Network Outage Means for Car Sharing Operators

On November 28, 2024, TDC Net, one of Denmark’s largest mobile network operators, suffered a major outage. People could not use mobile data, and even calls to emergency services were disrupted.

For car sharing, an incident of this size is a real stress test. Every vehicle depends on a mobile network to receive unlock commands, confirm bookings or report its status to fleet managers. For an operator relying on a tech stack locked to a single network, an outage quickly becomes an operational problem:

• Vehicles are unreachable:
  Commands cannot get through, so customers cannot unlock their car.
  Business Impact: You lose revenue.
• Rentals cannot start or end:
  Customers on the road cannot finish their trip, and customers at the curb cannot begin one.
  Business Impact: You get more support tickets and negative reviews.
• Recovery is out of your hands:
  The fleet stays offline until the network provider fixes the issue.
  Business Impact: You can only wait, while customers and revenue slip away.

Behind the Scenes of a Network Outage

On that November day, many of our CloudBoxxes in Denmark were connected to TDC Net. Around noon, our monitoring showed a spike in missing downlink pings. Our backend sends these signals to every CloudBoxx around the clock. When devices stop receiving them, they can’t get instructions from the server, so a spike is an early warning of network trouble.

At the same time, the number of CloudBoxxes connected via TDC Net had dropped sharply. Almost all devices had already left the failed network on their own.

How a Multi-Network Setup Keeps Vehicles Online

Leaving a failed network is only the first step. The telematics unit also needs another network to connect to, and that depends on whether your fleet is tied to a single network operator. Advanced solutions like the CloudBoxx use a multi-network approach, so the telematics unit can always choose the best available network. If the first one goes down or has no coverage, the unit switches to another. This means an outage does not take your fleet offline.

A case from Latvia shows how this works. On July 10, 2026, Latvian network operator LMT suffered a network outage that affected around 1,000 CloudBoxxes.

Shortly after the incident began, the number of CloudBoxxes using LMT had dropped significantly. All devices had switched to Tele2, without any intervention from our team.

Within 15 minutes, all affected CloudBoxxes were back online, while the outage itself lasted around three hours.

That gap is what matters for operators. With a single network, your fleet waits for the provider to fix the problem. With a multi-network setup, your fleet is back online within minutes, while customers might not even notice any disruption.

Additional Layers That Protect Your Fleet

Switching networks is only the first layer. Other parts of the connectivity architecture can fail as well, and each one needs its own protection:

• Roaming Partners:
  Most telematics units are deployed globally, so they don’t use country-specific
  SIM cards. To ensure global coverage, roaming partners negotiate contracts with
  network operators all over the world and tell each SIM which local network it can use. Devices with access to several roaming partners stay connected even if one roaming partner fails.
• Connectivity Provider:
  A connectivity provider issues the SIM card and manages the contracts behind it – either directly or through a roaming partner. Some devices are capable of carrying two SIMs from different connectivity providers, so issues with one SIM card won’t take the vehicle offline.
• Bluetooth Access:
  Where there is no cellular coverage at all, for example in an underground garage, customers can still lock and unlock the car via Bluetooth. Once the car returns to coverage, it reconnects, syncs any queued events and restores fleet data automatically.

Check Your Car Sharing Connectivity Setup with Our White Paper

Our white paper on connectivity covers each layer in depth, with more real-world examples and a look at the monitoring behind them. Use it to see which layers your current telematics setup has and which are missing.

Download Now

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to car sharing vehicles when a mobile network fails?

Vehicles that rely on a single network cannot receive unlock commands, confirm bookings or report their status. Rentals cannot start or end, and the fleet stays offline until the network provider fixes the outage.

How does multi-network telematics keep a car sharing fleet online?

A multi-network telematics unit chooses the best available network. If its current network goes down or has no coverage, it switches to another one automatically, without manual intervention.

How quickly do vehicles reconnect after a network outage?

With a multi-network setup, within minutes. When LMT Latvia had a three-hour outage in July 2026, all affected CloudBoxxes had switched to Tele2 LV and were back online within 15 minutes.

Can customers still unlock a car without mobile network coverage?

Yes, if the vehicle supports Bluetooth access. Customers can open and close the car via Bluetooth even without cellular coverage, for example in an underground garage. Once the car is back in coverage, queued events sync automatically.