snagitseven

Depends where you are. In my area it's about the same speed as my iPhone AT&T 3G. Any wireless device will work on the hotspot (although not blazingly fast).

If you're talking about T-Mobile, the sim card is already in the car. If other providers, they supply the sim card when you sign up.

BSullivan

I also installed the PTEL sim. Took about 4 days to get via USPS, activated on PC, put in sim, changed APN and almost immediately had 3G connection. I'll have to check my connection settings because the car now asks if I want to download rather than just downloading as before. Googlemaps, online search etc. all operational.

Bob

snagitseven

There's an option in the tel/connections settings that determines if you want to be asked first to have the connection or always on.

feralc

Excuse me guys where are you getting the $5 per month thing??
I checked the provider's website and the only thing I could find was the pay as you go option of 10 cents per MB.

I just returned from a trip and I was curious to see how much data the google earth nav downloads per hour, I averaged 30MB per hour of driving (at 2G speed because I used my AT&T sim card) I do not know if a 3G sim will download even more data because the 2G not always kept up with the refresh rate needed at highway speeds and at 30Mts distance (the map goes faster because the distance is shorter and it has to download more data vs a higher altitude)

So at $3 per hour of driving (at a higher altitude I am sure it will be less data but still) I do not think the "pay as you go" option is that cheap, unless you are very conscious to only use it when you need it.

weth

Ya, it won't be $5 a month if you use Googe Earth maps at 30 feet scale all the time.

I use the NAV and Google voice search several times a month, but not constantly. The last 2 months I averaged right around 50 MB with this intermittent use. 50MB * $0.10 is where I get the 5 bucks.

So my choice was to pay $30 per month to T-mobile/Audi and use as much as I want, or use only what I need and get the monthly cost as low as $5. It can't be lower than $5 since the $10 card expires in 60 days.

If I take a long family road trip, I may just pay the T-mobile/Audi rate of $30 for 1 month, and spend $5 the other 11 months.

My first week of use and it looks if I'll be in the $7.50 range if I keep current use up, although I have been using it more than usual to test ptel.com. Prior to this I was using AT&T card with 2G and $14.99 for 250 MB iPad plan (moved the SIM from the iPad after signing up for the plan on the iPad.).

feralc

This is what I do, I use my AT&T sim card from time to time, I have an old unlimited data but you cannot download that much data at 2G.
Do you know why the AT&T sim does not give you 3G in the car?? I am asking you because there is no T-Mobile Ipads yet and I am curious if I can get an AT&T one and use my Audi's Tmobile sim there, it is 30 dlls per month for unlimited vs 3GB, but I am afraid the same thing will happen the other way around, that the Ipad will be connecting at 2G speeds because the sim card is not AT&Ts.

weth

It's all about frequencies. AT&T does not use the 1900 MHz frequency for 3G in the Southern California area. So when we put the AT&T sim in our Audi it only gets 2G speeds as this could only see a 1900 MHz frequency put out by AT&T. The cellular radio is not designed for 850 MHz frequency which AT&T uses for 3G speeds in Southern California.

Until recently T-Mobile only used the frequency combination of 1700 MHz/2100 MHz for 3G speeds. The 1900 MHz frequency range was only used for 2G speeds. That is now changing and they are using 1900 MHz for 3G speeds in some areas including San Diego we both live in. So it is possible that you will get a 3G speed by using a T-Mobile Sim on an unlocked AT&T device in some areas. However this will not be universal yet although T-Mobile is trying to get there.

Keep in mind though the T-Mobile/Audi supplied sim seems to have a very significant throttle that initiates at low megabyte range That can give you essentially 2G speeds. This is one major reasons I found the Audi supply T-Mobile Sim not a good value

snagitseven

Can you provide some evidence of this "throttling" by T-Mobile in the Audi? I've not experienced this. I will see a slowdown to 2G due to leaving a T-Mobile 3G area (as shown on the indicator light) or due to excessive data traffic in a particular area (like with AT&T 3G on my iPhone on occasion) but I've not seen any slow down by reaching some level of data received. (I use Google Earth quite a bit and rack up some significant usage).

weth

I only have my personal experience and testing. It definitely is not leaving a 3G area and only getting a 2G signal indicated on MMI. My testing proved to me it was not a tower overloaded either.

I would notice that somewhere north of 500 MB and definitely after 1GB the kids would start complaining of not being able to stream Netflix. I bought a T-Mobile prepaid SIM and load card. I then went to a location near my home with full bars and 3G (I really must drive about 30 miles toward the mountains before T mobile only has 2G in our area). I then speed tested with the Audi/T mobile SIM and then the T mobile prepaid SIM. I did publish this in AudiWorld forum at the time. Recalling from memory I got only about 0.2 Mbps down with 1000 msec ping with the Audi SIM but 1.3 Mbps down with the prepaid SIM with 200 msec ping. In both cases upstream was about 0.1 Mbps.

After decreasing use (turning off wifi hotspot in car) and retesting a month later, the down speeds were nearly the same, with prepaid still winning. Ping on the Audi SIM always was very slow and near the 1000 msec point.

While this was conclusive to me, it is only a study of 1, and I would not say anything is proven unless others get similar results.

Nyuni

Depends on your usage. I just got a PTel sim myself, because it fit my data usage and I'm fairly certain I won't exceed $10 worth of data charges in 60 days - that's the smallest prepaid amount they let you 'load' on your account. Any prepaid funds on their pay as you go plan expire after 60 days, so as long as you're not exceeding $10 in data charges per 60 days... Then you come out to an effective $5/mo. Obviously, if you use more than that, then you're looking at more cost.

I put the ptel sim in on the 2nd - and with 'normal' usage including some Google Maps download data and online voice searches, I'm pushing just over 1MB of usage, but I'd consider that heavier than normal usage for me. YMMV.