A close look is taken across the globe at the current state of narrowband and wideband telematics. Current market acceptance of services and their associated terminals, services research in the world's communication laboratories, and technology advances in speech and image processing that are likely to affect future evolution of telematics are described. Present-day experiences with new services are summarized, exploratory development efforts are described, and insights are offered into what the authors believe to be the remaining key problems, technological, market, or economic, that stand in the way of large-scale use of telematics.