superswiss

That's certainly odd. I popped in a T-Mobile SIM from a Mifi in one of the dealer loaners once and it picked right up. When I switched my car to AT&T, I didn't have to do anything. Took a couple of minutes for the MMI to auto configure the APN settings and then it picked right up.

snagitseven

I don't think the car cares what sim is used so long as the card is attached to a valid account. When you popped in your AT&T card, I presume you got it from them and it was configured and assigned to a new or existing account to be used in a shared device. Sounds like AT&T is unique in that the card auto-configures to the internet which is a nice feature.

superswiss

Correct, as long as the SIM has been provisioned with data service the MMI doesn't care. I activated my AT&T SIM through one of my tablets and then just took it out and popped it into the MMI. The APN settings as far as I know are either stored on the device or they are acquired from the network upon initial connection. This probably doesn't work for third-party SIMs and you end up having to manually enter it. The MMI provided it's '14 and newer hardware appears to be preconfigured for AT&T and T-Mobile, so it should just work with a properly activated SIM from either provider.

Ken Hunrichs

Hope this is not off topic since I'm talking about a Q7 but I was able to install a AT&T sim card today and add the new device on my existing shared data plan. My T-Mobile trial was expiring in a few days and everything I was being told by the dealer and the Audi Connect customer service was steering me back to T-Mobile to renew for $450 for 30 months. I don't need a new account to track and pay for; got that already with AT&T.

I brought the relevant information about the car's hardware and AT&T set up a new sim card. I installed it and it was mostly automatic. I needed to select a new user name and password with the setup and it is working fine with 3G service just like the T-Mobile. All functions appear to be working but I did notice there was 250 Mb data use in one afternoon. I hope that is the initial setup with Google Maps and will not be the norm. That kind of daily use would run through my 3 Gb plan pretty quickly. I didn't worry about data use during the trial. Would it be using a large amount of data for intermittent use?

Thanks to all that provided information in this forum that allowed me to set up my car without being railroaded into a long term T-Mobile plan.

snagitseven

The Google Earth overlay can eat data faster than a family of six at an all you can eat buffet. If you always stay within your home area (roughly a 20 mile radius), the cache will maintain most of the Earth data after the initial data fills the cache. If you leave it on and travel outside that area, you will start consuming as it continues to refresh the cache. (Note that using the wifi hotspot to access the internet can suck data quickly as well).

As an experiment, today I first noted my usage with US Mobile - since 8/14 (19 days) I had used about 1MB with no Google Earth usage - mostly online searches with an occasional weather check. Then, I turned on Google Earth while traveling outside my area. After about only 15 minutes of interstate travel, I checked the usage - it had gone up to almost 5MB. If I had kept it on while cruising the interstate, it would have used about 20MB per hour.

Needless to say, I turned it off and will only use Google Earth very sparingly on my 100MB $4.70 per month account, especially if traveling outside my cached area.

superswiss

FWIW, I have Google Earth turned on all the time and pretty much always have the MMI on the map screen to see traffic. If I don't leave my home area much in a given month it uses around a 100MB, but when I go on road trips it has gone as high as 400MB/month. That's the highest so far. I have a 3GB plan with two phones and the MMI on it. I occasional tether my laptops if I don't have access to Wifi and my total data usage between my wife, the MMI and I doesn't go much over 1GB/month, but then our phones are connected to Wifi for most of the day at home and at work. AT&T just gave me a 3GB per month bonus through 2017, so now I don't have to worry at all to go over.

Jim.Stinson

Thanks for the information. By relevant information do you mean the IMEI number? I tried to activate a new AT&T SIM card at my local AT&T store, but they were unable to activate it. They said their system recognized that the IMEI I gave them was valid, but that it wasn't permitted to be used on AT&T's network. The guy in the store explained that he had received training about people trying to switch "T-Mobile" Audi's to "AT&T" Audi's and they weren't allowed to do it. He suggested that I call 611, and trying to activate the SIM card through AT&T's call center, but I ultimately ended up with the same response when I did so.

I'm curious what you said that allowed them to steer around AT&T provisioning software blocks. My only other solution is to buy a 1st generation iPad on eBay for the sole purpose of activating the SIM card and then using in my Audi (2015).

snagitseven

Doesn't have to be an iPad. I would think any tablet with a cel radio would work.

Ken Hunrichs

It took two visits to the San Diego AT&T store. It wasn't that the folks there were opposed to signing me up for service, they just were not familiar with how to do it. I found this forum that same evening and read about what was needed including the IMEI number. So I decided to try the $10 experiment for a month's worth of ATT service. I took photos of the display in the dashboard that showed all the information I needed using my Samsung tablet. I brought that tablet to the ATT store and showed them the photos but I didn't try to mislead them into thinking they were setting up the tablet. They processed and activated the sim card by adding it to my existing account as just another device using data. A new phone number seems to have been assigned to that sim card and shows up on my account summary online at the ATT website. I installed the activated sim card and all went well. I did have some trouble with the phone app for MMI Connect. It upgraded about the same time as when I changed to ATT with a different format. It works but now there are online destinations that don't appear on the phone app put are on the car display that I can't seem to delete. While testing by adding a new address destination it duplicated that entry three time and I cannot get rid of it. I can't say if it is related to the switch to ATT or some bug in the new phone app. Otherwise all seems to be working OK. I am going to be watching the data use since the initial setup gobbled up nearly 300 Mb from my shared data plan. Good luck with your attempt to switch. I'm sure glad to have found this information on this forum and I hope this helps you.

Jim.Stinson

Thanks for the information. My experience with the AT&T employees is the same, they are trying to help, and I've explained exactly what I'm trying to do. As I understand it, within AT&T's system, each SIM card is provisioned a telephone number, even if the device it is to be installed in can't make calls. That is apparently how AT&T tracks usage through the cell towers. In order to set up the telephone number and add it to my existing AT&T family plan, they need the SIM card number and the IMEI number. In my case, even through AT&T system shows the SIM card (the AT&T employee gave me a new one) number and my Audi IMEI number are valid, AT&T's system won't issue the telephone number. He showed me his screen, the activation button is greyed out and he can't activate the account. They even took $25 off my next bill because they couldn't get the number provisioned. I guess I'll make another trip to the AT&T store. Thanks again.