feralc

It seems you know what you are talking about, the newest Ipad has the following specs

GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz)
LTE (Bands 4 and 17)

And it could be connecting at 3G speeds at the 2100MHZ freq but according to this it cannot "Some users have been confused by the fact that the iPad supports UMTS/HSDPA 2100 MHz while T-Mobile operates 3G in the 1700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, which seems to indicate that the two would be compatible. In reality, however, the 2100 MHz band supported by the iPad is the more globally standard European/Asian UMTS band, while T-Mobile operates on more closed AWS band component of the 2100 MHz spectrum."

So the only option available is 1900MHZ and Tmobile is pushing that frequency according to the following (just like you Said)

http://gigaom.com/mobile/t-mobile-ce...one-subsidies/)


So my question is the following, IF the Audi Sim card is NOT throttled, and I get an AT&T Ipad would I be able to use LTE with the Audi/Tmobile sim card once the LTE network is available?
I know the MMI will not operate at 4G I am talking about the AT&T ipad with the LTE Tmobile's network

For what I read it seems Tmobile's LTE will operate in Band 4 so in theory the Audi Connect sim card should work with an Ipad (unless it is a different band just like the 2100MHZ mentioned earlier)

weth

Your reaching the limits of my knowledge now! I do believe AT&T and Tmobile LTE will be compatible, but there is no T mobile LTE yet to confirm.

However, I also believe the SIM must be provisioned for LTE, so the Audi SIM would not be, so we will still be stuck with EDGE.

feralc

Ok this is what I did, I got an Ipad with at&t, and I cut my audi sim card to a micro sim card size to use it with the Ipad.
The car comes with the following APN settings m2m.t-mobile.com, and the Tmobile phones use the APN epc.tmobile.com (note one has a hyphen and the other one doesnt)
the APN epc.tmobile.com DOES NOT work with the AT&T Ipad (at least not with the Audi sim card), but m2m.t-mobile.com DOES, so you need to cut the sim card to micro sim size with a cutter (you will cut a little bit of the brass because it is near the edge it is ok it doesnt ruin it) and then in the AT&T Ipad you will put the APN m2m.t-mobile.com (with a hyphen)
the results? 3G connection in San Diego CA area, because they are using 1900 MHZ in the 3G band now here(I do not know about some other areas)

For getting the sim card back to the car I got a Micro sim adapter to standard sim.

now I can pay only when I travel to get the audi connect during the trip and the Ipad in case the hotel charges for the wifi. I do not drive the car that often to pay for audi connect every month, and if I need to download the maps where I drive most of the time, I just insert my AT&T sim from my phone.

Why did I go through all this instead of just using the sim card provided with the Ipad in my car? because the AT&T sim only gives you 2G edge speeds in the car, and doing this I can have 3G speeds in both the car and the Ipad, forfeiting of course the 4G LTE I could have with the Ipad provided sim, but as I said before I will only use the Audi Connect and the Ipad cellular connection when I travel, otherwise there is wifi at home, etc.

It is very important to note the hyphen in the APN settings otherwise the Ipad will not work with the Audi sim, everytime you put the incorrect APN you are transferred to this weird website androidapi.t-mobile.com/apppack/mvno.html

urotex

I ordered a T-mobile 4g wifi hotspot that I can connect up to 5 devices too. I am hoping to use my prepaid audi connect sim which has about 24 mos left on it. Do you know if it will work in the ZTE Model MF61 T-Mobile 4G Hotspot?
Will I have to change the APN?

NoahWeb

Ordered the PTEL Sim card today; I'll let y'all know how it goes with my A6 TDI.

NoahWeb

Received SIM card yesterday and activated in about 5 mins via the Ptel website. In the car, it was just as quick to swap SIM's and establish new service. Changed the APN to wholesale, and was good-to-hook. Audi Connect, Google Earth, voice search all work with no problems.

I loaded $50 onto the SIM and we'll see how long that lasts.

Of note, the download speeds are noticeably faster! Sure beats paying T-Mobile/Audi $15/mo for the service! I have switched off the in car wifi though, rather preserve data for google earth.

snagitseven

Interesting that you note it's faster since Ptel uses the same T-Mobile network. Also, if you use Google Earth regularly outside of about a 20 mile cached radius, be prepared to go through your prepaid data faster than $15 per month.

NoahWeb

Thankfully the WEC race is next weekend and the drive from El Paso to Austin is just perfect to test this!! Wondering if the TDI can do the drive on half a tank

I think the mobile throttling is account linked. By changing SIMs you've entered another account, thereby resetting the throttle. Still seems faster regardless though.

snagitseven

In over two years of AC steady use, I haven't observed any dropped speeds after periods of time on my T-Mobile acct. I also haven't seen any hard evidence anywhere that they actually throttle speed to the car.

NoahWeb

Boy I sure have! In-Car WiFi and a few hours to kill in the Military...speeds would progressively slow down. When I checked the data usage in the MMI and found in ~15 days, I consumed 3.5 GB of data...yeah. It was noticeably slower.

There were some speed-tests done in the Q7 AC thread which you might want to take a look at.