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Now that these cars have been on the road for about 6 months & the Audi Connect trial periods are coming to an end - I'm going to be interested in finding out how to put the wi-fi hotspot on an existing AT&T Family plan. I know the basic Audi Connect subscription is based on the modem with its embedded SIM & IMEI & has to be purchased thru Audi. But my understanding is the wi-fi hotspot is a separate system / subscription. If the SIM slot in the glove box is inoperative, how do you sign up with AT&T rather than Audi's ridiculously expensive data plan?
My dealer doesn't have a clue since none of their cars have hit the 6 month mark yet. I know one of the guys on the B9 A4 forum has succeeded in making the SIM slot in the glove box active, but that involves VAG-COM which I don't have & I'm not a fan of monkeying around on my own.
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Audi Connect includes 6GB for WiFi clients (for both the 6 months and the 30 months plan). If that is not sufficient then you can get additional data for WiFi clients (AudiConnect features will always work as long as you have an active subscription).
If you go to MyAudiConnect.com and login to see your subscription status you can click AT&T Data Plans. One of the plans is AT&T Monthly Plan ($10) and if you proceed you should be able to subscribe to AudiConnect and then add the AT&T monthly plan. At the end this should tell AT&T to add your eSIM IMEI to your AT&T Family plan, at least in theory.
If you have a data SIM that you want to use you could stop by and I make the change that enables the SIM card slot. But using the SIM card slot will route all data through the SIM card, so data used for Google Earth and such will go against your family plan even though it's already paid for via AudiConnect subscription. Would be interesting to see how they handle this if WiFi data is subscribed via AT&T and eSIM.
Audi Connect includes 6GB for WiFi clients (for both the 6 months and the 30 months plan). If that is not sufficient then you can get additional data for WiFi clients (AudiConnect features will always work as long as you have an active subscription).
If you go to MyAudiConnect.com and login to see your subscription status you can click AT&T Data Plans. One of the plans is AT&T Monthly Plan ($10) and if you proceed you should be able to subscribe to AudiConnect and then add the AT&T monthly plan. At the end this should tell AT&T to add your eSIM IMEI to your AT&T Family plan, at least in theory.
If you have a data SIM that you want to use you could stop by and I make the change that enables the SIM card slot. But using the SIM card slot will route all data through the SIM card, so data used for Google Earth and such will go against your family plan even though it's already paid for via AudiConnect subscription. Would be interesting to see how they handle this if WiFi data is subscribed via AT&T and eSIM.
Excellent explanation - Thanks
I hadn't been on that Audi Connect page since my 2013 & obviously it's all new.
I guess when my trial runs out I'll call & find out for sure if the AT&T Monthly plan for $10 does go on my existing Family Plan. If so, the whole process appears veery simple (just really expensive compared to the T-Mobile plan on the 2013 - but that was miserable 3G coverage & connect speed).
Why do you want to pay for the in car wifi? I use my phone in hot spot mode and let my family members connect to it.
One of the reasons I can think of is that most of the major carriers now require an additional monthly fee to activate hotspot sharing for your phone on top of the monthly additional device charge. It used to be that you could simply use it with an iPhone but more recently when you get a new one and renew your plan, you get a message to call your carrier when you try turning on the hotspot. Then then force you to subscribe for the hotspot as an additional feature with a charge.
On Android, it has been locked by the carriers for years unless you add it as a specific feature. There used to be workarounds from developers like FoxFI but they no longer work.
I have Verizon and I don't believe they charge extra for mobile hotspot. At least I haven't seen it as an extra charge on my phone.
I'm a little up in the air on the whole in car Wifi. Outside of being able to download something data friendly like apps on an Ipad, downloading movies would suck to much data to be worth having.
I think on the rare occasion it would get used, I will just hotspot my phone.
Why do you want to pay for the in car wifi? I use my phone in hot spot mode and let my family members connect to it.
I had actually weighed that question before I made the post. My wife & I both have AT&T iPhones with hotspot capability (at no additional cost).
However:
Keeping the hotspot turned on significantly reduces battery life. Actually connecting a device to it reduces it even more (I really don't want to have to plug it in everytime I get in the car - plus I have a tendency to forget it when I get out )
Having her phone in her purse or mine in my pocket reduces signal strength & connection speed. The hot spot in the car has an external antenna which gives you the best available performance.
My wife used the hotspot in our 2013 extensively. She didn't do anything data intensive, but it's just much more convenient to pull out her iPad that has already connected to the car, & do her thing.
I certainly wouldn't pay Audi's exorbitant rates for just data (on top of the Audi Connect subscription), but adding $10 on to my huge existing Family Plan (kids & grandkids) doesn't amount to a whole lot.
Mine just ran out and I really have loved the traffic congestion information on the google maps. With the huge traffic issues in Houston it really is one of the reasons I decided to keep it for another 6 months. I am hoping that there will be a software upgrade that allows Apple maps to appear on the main display instead of the pop-up monitor.
You guys with the hotspot functionality on your phones.................When was the last time you upgraded? We have 11 people on a company plan with AT&T with 30 gigs of shared data. None of us with phone upgrades in the past 6 months can use wireless hotpot functionality on our phones without a prompt to add it to the plan as a feature (at an additional cost). Employees with older phones are still able to use it.
Perhaps it's only a problem for business users?
As a side note, none of our Android users have ever been able to use it.
Last edited by pcaddict66; 06-20-2016 at 08:57 AM.
You guys with the hotspot functionality on your phones.................When was the last time you upgraded? We have 11 people on a company plan with AT&T with 30 gigs of shared data. None of us with phone upgrades in the past 6 months can use wireless hotpot functionality on our phones without a prompt to add it to the plan as a feature (at an additional cost). Employees with older phones are still able to use it.
Perhaps it's only a problem for business users?
As a side note, none of our Android users have ever been able to use it.
It could be something to do with being a commercial account. Large companies can negotiate different features in their contracts. My son's iPhone was on his company's corporate account up until a couple of years ago & he didn't have hotspot capability until he moved over to our Family plan.
My wife's iPhone 5S that was on our Family plan was stolen last week & we immediately replaced it with an SE from the Apple store so that was probably considered an "upgrade".. I did a restore from her latest backup & the hotspot works with no problem.
You might have to check with whoever in your company handles your account with AT&T.
06-17-2016, 11:04 AM
Audi Connect - End of trial period
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