GM reveals how much you'll pay to turn your car into a rolling 4G LTE Wi-Fi hotspot GM has announced how much it will set you back to turn one of its 4G LTE–equipped vehicles into a mobile hot spot for Wi-Fi–only kit such as the one your li'l nipper will use to stream NetFlix in the back seat on the way to grandma's house. "Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac will be the first vehicle brands to market with 4G …
Settings / Personal Hotspot: select 'On'
I do this *all the time* so that the kidiots can access the Interweb from the back seat of our luxury saloon. Since my data plan includes 6GB/month, it's all built into the monthly fee I already pay.
No need for Yet Another Stupid Fricken' Monthly Bill ™.
>Since my data plan includes 6GB/month, it's all built into the monthly fee I already pay.
Must have well trained kidiots - mine regularly encounter the monthly hard cap... (I use it as an aid to regulating their monthly internet activities.)
>No need for Yet Another Stupid Fricken' Monthly Bill ™.
Agree, but you do want the in-car systems such as the satnat and traffic report to work and be up-todate etc. etc. (and yes an OS update is circa 1GB, but did you not read the small print where it says the only way to update the OS is via the 4G service...)
I expect that if you pay a little extra, you will be able to download the GM app to your smartphone which will let you monitor the in-car data usage - via the WiFi, however it won't let you throttle usage but will enable you to purchase additional credit...
The old solution: "Don't make me go back there!" doesn't work too well, the other solution "You can get out and walk." is a little bit better (I've been on both sides of this!). Ultimately, the best solution is to "dope up" the screaming urchins and get them to sleep. Starting out at some sleepy hour (before the sun rises) usually functions well.
Unfortunately, this doesn't work for adult passengers (wife) who complain about your attempts to get to the destination at a reasonable time. They really don't want to watch the scenery but do desire to complain (usually after looking up from the iPhone) that you are "doing it wrong". This "looking up" is usually followed by inhaling great amounts of air followed by a (very) loud remark. I leave it to the reader to fill in the gaps.
Yes, here in the USA, we do take long drives (12 hours, which included stops), but they are unusual.
Now where is the sleeping gas?
p.s. If the data costs THAT much, it will be cheaper to buy the DVD and use a player.
"Ultimately, the best solution is to "dope up" the screaming urchins and get them to sleep. Starting out at some sleepy hour (before the sun rises) usually functions well."
Oddly enough , so does thrash metal turned up to 11 as soon as they start to piss about.
>p.s. If the data costs THAT much, it will be cheaper to buy the DVD and use a player.
Showing your age :)
I thought one of the big benefits of Netflix et al was that you could download a movie or whatever to your portable device(s) and so take it with you.
Call me old fashioned but I hate most of the digital crap they are putting into cars. Nothing but eye candy bling. Do I like auto nav? Yep. I have that on my phone already, thank you.
Tried using a touch screen with gloves? Or not actually looking at it? Incredibly stupid idea. There is far too much beeping, blinging distractions on dashboards. I need information, not dancing hamsters.
Very few makers even get the interface right. Given the current state of interface design even among long established software makers (crap), I doubt they ever will.
DVD screens for rear seat passengers? Headphone jacks? Cool idea. One of the few I like. Big Brother, er, On Star and WiFi hot spot? I want privacy in my car, not an audience of corporate spooks. The phone is bad enough, but at least I can turn that off and remove the battery if I want.
Oh, and the kids? Yeah, "Don't make me stop this car" does work if you're not some mama's boy of a father.
My latest car has a touchscreen satnav / music thingy. Now this may be just me, but the fact that the touchscreen is not directly in front of you while driving (even in this day and age, the steering wheel still takes pride of place in car) its a pain in the arse to press the correct stuff on the touch screen. I seem to be slightly off target sometimes, whereas if a touchscreen is directly in front of me, no problems. With normal buttons or switches, no probs, but for me, the lack of texture or relief on virtual 'buttons' makes finding them tricky. However, on the plus side, SD card based music in a car is great, has to be the idea media for a car.
"Don't make me stop this car" does work if you're not some mama's boy of a father.
I found that the opposite was much more effective. Anything that sounded remotely like, "Are we there yet?" would add an additional 15 minutes onto any trip - even if I had to drive around the block. One of my kids' friends used the dreaded phrase while on a road trip with us... I thought my kids were going to pull his head off to stop him before he could get the whole thing out.
where a sizeable percentage of holiday drives consist of two days crossing vast stretches of bumfuck nowhere that would do justice to Arrakis, in which mobile phone coverage, let alone 3G or 4G, exists to about the same degree as Star Trek transporter coverage.
I can picture it now: Leave the house in Adelaide at 5 AM, kids promptly go back to sleep, wake up in Port Pirie for breakfast at 8, kids quietly watch TV in the back seat until you hit Port Augusta around 9:30, and after that it's out into Mad-Max-land for the rest of the trip.
Cue cries of "DAAAAAD! My tablet's not working any mooooore! My cartoon keeps dropping out!" "No, and it isn't going to work now until we get to Perth/Alice/Darwin/wherever tomorrow night"*
"Awwwwww!... Are we there yet?....are we there yet?...are we there yet?..."
Or you could just fly.
*or in the case of Adelaide - Perth, the night after that.
>I'd love to see this in the UK
It is highly likely to be in the UK and Europe within the year, given the EU wants eCall to be up and running by 2015. So new cars will be 4g/3g capable before then.
But then I would be interested to know how they intend to charge: become a fully fledged MVNO or operate a bit like Amazon and bulk purchase data and effectively own and operate their own private enterprise data plan, but unlike Amazon charge each registered SIM user for the data they use.
Depends how you've trained them. We often took ours places and made them sit still on our laps without making a noise. It isn't easy, but it is a discipline worth developing. I don't think we've ever had a problem with our UK-Oz flights which we've done every couple of years.
If you routinely use digital to distract, that will be needed and a book won't suffice. That seems self defeating to me. Train them with the ideal state, not the one with the fastest results.
"...flying with young kids..."
Two kidiots, back and forth Asia / Canada every few years. Airports and travel is always a bit of a pain, but that's true even when I'm by myself. The two kidiots (even when very young) are no trouble at all. A big happy adventure each and every time. Fun for everyone.
Much of the parental pain I see is self-induced. e.g. Parents trying to bring an SUV-sized stroller along everywhere, as opposed to a tiny folding umbrella stroller. Daft.
Call me old fashioned, but: We're going on a long journey, here is a bag, fill it with whatever you need to keep yourself occupied. Have you gone to the loo? OK, let's go.
The overnight driving thing worked for a while, but now they're getting too big to sleep comfortably, and I'm getting too old to pull all-nighters safely.
Travel bingo and 'just looking out of the window' works quite well too.
(Of course there's some things we did back then which you can't now: I remember sitting in the boot of our old Volvo, gurning at truck drivers with my brother and grading their responses. And pretending to 'steer' the car with the knob on the 'window winder')
a) the kids probably already have their own data plans so can use that for their FB/Twitter
b) Most phones can run a mobile hotspot. I ran a hotspot on my Galaxy SIII just yesterday for 7 hours. Worked perfectly.
c) Why should GM get to spy/monitor/mine my web activity in addition to Google and every fucker else on planet earth?
Next thing you know, GM will be sending you adverts from "carefully chosen affiliates" based on your browsing habits. Better hope the boys aren't watching grumble flicks in the back seat with the headphones on.
Seems that soon the car will be a loss-leader. You will be the product, not the car.
Not sure of the point of this - after all your phones will have their own data connection and is anyone going to want to desperately need connection in their cars in order to have connectivity with the outside world (and if so, why didn't they buy the 3G/4G tablet version instead)?
It's only really worth putting in the car if the car's electronics itself is making use of this, surely?
"...will be able to add 200MB of data per month for $5, 1GB for $15, 3GB for $30, and 5GB for $50. Non-subscribers will pay $10, $20, $30, and $50 for the same bandwidth amounts.
GM cites AT&T's Data Calculator when saying that 200MB of bandwidth is "enough to stream more than 6.5 hours of music, surf the internet for 13 hours or send more than 10,000 emails without attachments."
Those numbers are not bandwidth.
I was rather looking forward to the car telling me that as I'm about to run out of fuel, there's Xoco in a couple of miles, but GM drivers get a discount at the Mall just off the sat nav, and there's a Tim Horton's there.
Or, the sat nav screen going blank at a complex junction, just to be replaced by an ad for WalMart.
Bring it on.
Only use i can see for this is those tablets without 3G or 4G built in, but love to see just how much coverage you'd get in the UK trying to use 4G on the go. Leave house if lucky enough to have 4G and two miles down the road it drops to 3G, then 2 and rapidly Edge. Pretty sure some Peugeots have 3G built in, but you supply the sim card...prob preferable solution.
How about Seeing the USA with Chevy? [youtube link, not all that SFW with the volume up]
Although I think that one's actually a Ford.
" should you just want to load up on bandwidth, big-time, you can purchase it in 12-month, 10GB chunks at $150 for OnStar subscribers and $200 for non-subscribers."... 10GB a YEAR for $150? Thanks, but I will pass on that. I have no need for rolling WiFi, as A) I have no kids in the back seat, and B) any sort of texting and driving is illegal where I live.
How are GM supposed to make any money out of that?
Simple enough: They'll be selling your travel profile and your Music & Movie preferrences to anyone with a few bucks to pay for it.
And, they'll make more money selling your profile than you'd ever believe.
There's GOLD in them thar' Tourists...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
