feralc

Audi connect only gives you the data connection, in my experience 2g works fine, 3g is not a big of a difference (at least not in the car) I thought 3g will allow the use of an ipad like for streaming movies for passenger but I was wrong, google maps works fine with 2g it will just take a little more to download maps while driving, but even with 3g the maps did not download as fast to eliminate the blurry, all the rest including search online works fine, save yourself 20 per month.

weth

Metallic Force - is this with your T-mobile 1.5 GB $25 prepaid card? I am in the last month of my 6 month free period and I do not get speeds like this anywhere. What is the APN you see with the prepaid card. Mine is M2M.T-MOBILE.COM as it comes from the factory.

At first I got speeds around 1 Mbps, but recently I am only getting around 0.25 Mbps down and 0.07 Mbps down. Ping is usually around 700 ms.

I just ordered a T-mobile prepaid card (same $25 1.5 GB) and SIM to see if that is faster. If so I will probably go with $25/month prepaid rather than the $30/month from T-mobile through Audi.

robertogag

What speed do you have using the "non Audi SIM"?

Metallic-Force

This is through T-mobile (Going into the store and asking for a broadband Sim), my plan is 25$/month for 1.5Gb as you mentioned. I still haven't gone to my car, but I'll check about the APN.

MileHighJC

It is really too bad that the 1.5G prepaid has the 30 day limit on it. I just checked my data usage, and after 8 weeks I've used 447M of data, and I have the Google earth Nav screen up most of the time - rough math is that one 1.5G sim would give me about 6 months. I would gladly keep two of the around all the time if they didnt expire.

The Truphone prepaid .17/mb plan doesnt work for this (I would have spent almost $76 for the same period)... and Im not up for $30/month (or really even $25/month). When my trial expires, Ill probably buy one of the Truphone prepaid SIMS, but turn off the google earth view, which is too bad, the google Earth overlay is very nice IMHO.

I guess If Im taking a major trip, I can always buy a 1.5G prepaid card from T-Mobile, and have the bling for a month, but I just dont drive the car enough to pay that EVERY month.

Metallic-Force

My exact same feelings. I only got it for 2 months because I have friends visiting from overseas, while they take my car, they are still connected to the internet where they can reach me and others.

I do like the Google Earth View, but... when I went to Austin, the normal maps has 3d buildings which looked cooler in my opinion. So it's a give or take. But for THIRTY F-ING DOLLARS a month, T-mobile can kiss it. It's more of a wow factor in the end.

Unless I start saving money in a big way, I can't justify spending so much money on a data plan that I already have on my phone.

weth

I tested out the non-Audi, T-mobile data SIM

I changed the APN from m2m.t-mobile.com to epc.tmobile.com
Rebooted the MMI and it connected without a probem. It did reset the data counter and changed to prompt for connection.

There is a definite difference in speed, Not sure how to explain it other than m2m.t-mobile limits speed in some way.

Audi SIM using m2m.t-mobile.com APN
Ping - 630 msec average
DL - 0.29 Mbps UL 0.07 Mbps

T-mobile data SIM using epc.tmobile.com
Ping 177 msec
DL 1.02 Mbps UL 0.10 Mbps

Since I can now get 1 months worth for $25 rather than $30 without prepaying for 2 years, I will probably do that when my free trial runs out next month. I sure hope T-mobile or a T-mobile MVNO starts using prepaid data that doesn't expire in 30 days, as this would make the service much more cost effective.

The Truphone solution is also just too expensive for me on how I want to you the service.

javicadena

Ok, so I have had my A6 for 9 months and have never contacted t mobile about paying for a plan after the trial period, however, I have full data coming through. Anyone has had this issue? Not a big deal for me if they cut me off, since I do not see much use for it. Just curious

robertogag

Thanks

What about using the Audi-sim with the "other specs" (epc.tmobile.com) I got a deal from Audi and pre-paid 36 months for a great price so I may try to make the best of it.

It works ok for google earth and online destinations but wi-fi is not usable.

Neurobit

Does anyone know if AT&T or VZ prepaid sims are also limited to 30 days of use? If not, I may get one just to keep the Google Earth functionality (Seems like 2G tradeoff for not using TMobile will be fine if I use this for Google Earth only - WiFi has never been unusable for me as the latency & speeds on TMobile are dismal, even on 3G).

Not a deal breaker really. My 6 month subscription ended last month and since my area is all cached on the HDD, it's not a huge deal, but rather nice to have if I travel to an area where I have not been in before.

Neurobit