4G/LTE speeds in NZ - painfully slow

[MMinehan]

What data speeds are people getting in NZ?
My 2016 MS with MCU2 upgrade has become almost unusable for streaming when on cellular. The TuneIn radio stations constantly buffer (spinning circle), and lately Spotify even takes ages to load songs and play lists.
Maps take ages to load. The mobile app sometimes can't connect. Seems like the data speeds are limiting a lot of the functionality.
I did a couple of speed tests today and am getting between 0.6 and 0.8 Mb/s (see photos), even with 3 or 4 bars on the LTE connection icon. On WiFi I get 140 Mb/s and things work as expected.
Tried rebooting and driving to different locations but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Pretty crap for 'premium' connectivity.
Interestingly all the traffic seems to route via Australia.....hence the Sydney and Melbourne in the speed test results.
Just wondering if others are getting similar results. Would be good if a couple of people could post some speed test results for comparison.

 

[Audietron]

What data speeds are people getting in NZ?
My 2016 MS with MCU2 upgrade has become almost unusable for streaming when on cellular. The TuneIn radio stations constantly buffer (spinning circle), and lately Spotify even takes ages to load songs and play lists.
I did a couple of speed test and am getting between 0.6 and 0.8 Mb/s (see photos), even with 3 or 4 bars on the LTE connection icon. On WiFi I get 140 Mb/s.
Tried rebooting and driving to different locations but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Pretty crap for 'premium' connectivity.
Just wondering if others are getting similar results.

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View attachment 867686

Yeah Spotify has been on and off issue lately... initial loading of navigation as well... so does initial loading of Netflix... but once movie started it was mostly okay.

Last I heard they had some lame excuse about increasing number of car connections, but that's just excuse... anyone providing data connectivity should be ready for any spike in usage, specifically before taking monthly payments from users...

However that would take company to play responsible and actually communicate to users... something we are not supposed to expect for unknown reasons.

 

[Ecoli]

I've been seeing "Routing with no traffic data" lately
I think for the last couple of months it's been popping up
Sometimes more than other times

Route via Australia yep, that's why you can see Au Netflix content

 

[RobDickinson]

wasnt there a problem they had a fix for Auckland but rolling that out to the rest of the country?

 

[Ecoli]

wasnt there a problem they had a fix for Auckland but rolling that out to the rest of the country?

yes, I can't remember where that was posted

found it

Tesla Software Updates for Model 3 New Zealand

anyone got 2022.36.1 yet? apparently across the ditch they have and I am so keen to see the sentry mode live view..... Nothing so far for me, seem it is indeed working for Au Premium connectivity required

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Audietron]

yes, I can't remember where that was posted

found it

Tesla Software Updates for Model 3 New Zealand

anyone got 2022.36.1 yet? apparently across the ditch they have and I am so keen to see the sentry mode live view..... Nothing so far for me, seem it is indeed working for Au Premium connectivity required

teslamotorsclub.com

Saying it's fixed and actually it is fixed are two things...

Routing with no route data (offline) was there for few months, mostly slow connection as soon after it shows traffic data.

However annoying part is having live Map on screen and once add destination, it's taking jolly time before giving directions.
Super annoying when change plan on motorway and wish to find fastest way nearest exit to New destination, only to realize if we were getting directions on time, we were able to take exit before 10 seconds and save significant amount of time.

 

[Matt_NZ]

wasnt there a problem they had a fix for Auckland but rolling that out to the rest of the country?

I think that was BS told by a service rep who doesn't understand how the internet works lol.

From what it seems, there's a bottleneck issue between NZ and Aus, since Tesla uses Telstra SIMs with an APN back to their servers in Aus. With the influx of cars they've sold, my theory is that there's no longer enough bandwidth on that connection to cope. They need to upgrade the connection or ideally, swap us all out to a NZ carrier.

I made a post on the Aussie forum here to see if they were having similar speed issues but they're reporting speeds of 50mbps+.

 

[khayyam]

Anecdotally, ours seems to be better recently in AKL. Not that I have speed tests to back it up, but most of the obvious buffering issues have stopped.

 

[Audietron]

I think that was BS told by a service rep who doesn't understand how the internet works lol.

From what it seems, there's a bottleneck issue between NZ and Aus, since Tesla uses Telstra SIMs with an APN back to their servers in Aus. With the influx of cars they've sold, my theory is that there's no longer enough bandwidth on that connection to cope. They need to upgrade the connection or ideally, swap us all out to a NZ carrier.

I made a post on the Aussie forum here to see if they were having similar speed issues but they're reporting speeds of 50mbps+.

Aren't they supposed to have some level of calculations and capacity based on past usage by cars? Means they should've upgraded connection before selling premium connectivity or car

If Vodafone or Telstra doing the same to their, customers will be switching ... Tesla us way too lucky

 

[MMinehan]

So I did some more testing today and the results are a bit weird (see attachments):
Inbuilt Tesla 4G/LTE: ~1 Mbps via Sydney
Wifi Hotspot via 2 Degrees mobile: ~15 Mbps via Auckland
Home Wifi: ~150 Mbps via Sydney

I guess I should look up 'whatsmyip' in each of these scenarios to see where it thinks I'm connecting from.

But regardless, the inbuilt 4G/LTE connection is rubbish. I end up having to use my phone's hotspot to be able to listen to the radio. It pisses me off because when I upgraded the MCU I had the choice of paying an extra ~$800 for a tuner but was told I didn't need it because I could just stream the radio stations.....Grrrrr!

UPDATE: funny thing. I logged a service call about this issue yesterday and literally just now, as I was typing this post, the Auckland service center rang to tell me they are well aware of the problem. They said they are 'frantically' working to solve the issue with Telstra and Spark who are the official 'roaming partner'. But no ETA on when this will be resolved. Like @Matt_NZ said the SIM cards are Telstra linked, even though they are Spark branded.

So I guess I'll have to use my hotspot until they fix it. Luckily my MS has lifetime free connectivity (and Supercharging) being an early model. I would be pissed if I was paying for 'premium connectivity'.

 

[Audietron]

So I did some more testing today and the results are a bit weird (see attachments):
Inbuilt Tesla 4G/LTE: ~1 Mbps via Sydney
Wifi Hotspot via 2 Degrees mobile: ~15 Mbps via Auckland
Home Wifi: ~150 Mbps via Sydney

I guess I should look up 'whatsmyip' in each of these scenarios to see where it thinks I'm connecting from.

But regardless, the inbuilt 4G/LTE connection is rubbish. I end up having to use my phone's hotspot to be able to listen to the radio. It pisses me off because when I upgraded the MCU I had the choice of paying an extra ~$800 for a tuner but was told I didn't need it because I could just stream the radio stations.....Grrrrr!

UPDATE: funny thing. I logged a service call about this issue yesterday and literally just now, as I was typing this post, the Auckland service center rang to tell me they are well aware of the problem. They said they are 'frantically' working to solve the issue with Telstra and Spark who are the official 'roaming partner'. But no ETA on when this will be resolved. Like @Matt_NZ said the SIM cards are Telstra linked, even though they are Spark branded.

So I guess I'll have to use my hotspot until they fix it. Luckily my MS has lifetime free connectivity (and Supercharging) being an early model. I would be pissed if I was paying for 'premium connectivity'.

Well it appears few of the members are from Tesla, so they got your attention.

We pay for premium connectivity and it's sad that very little can do about most issues with Tesla...

 

[m3lol]

Got to my destination (7km drive - 10 mins) before the nav even started searching for the address i wanted to go to.

Just kept saying ‘offline’ - surely premium connectivity pricing needs to reflect the poor quality service right now until they sort it.

@Audietron you’re up

 

[Audietron]

Got to my destination (7km drive - 10 mins) before the nav even started searching for the address i wanted to go to.

Just kept saying ‘offline’ - surely premium connectivity pricing needs to reflect the poor quality service right now until they sort it.

@Audietron you’re up

So my premium connectivity subscription expired today morning, as I had to replace credit card but forgot to update details with Tesla.

Thought of trying without premium connectivity... car drives 20km all good.. on way back randomly drives at 20-40km on motorway.... annoying... then on street decides to drop to some 15km, people honking and I am angry trying to takeover the driving, car devices to bump into oncoming traffic and turns steering toward oncoming bus....

Luckily I took over...

This is what happens when complain about premium connectivity and then it expires

 

[RobDickinson]

yeah that happened

 

[Aaron Hawes]

This is the best I could get, connectivity is not very premium.

 

[Matt_NZ]

Tesla is apparently putting pressure on Telstra to do something about it...but they're also apparently looking into a local carrier option (which I hope they go with, ultimately). According to the Official Owners Club.

 

[Audietron]

Tesla is apparently putting pressure on Telstra to do something about it...but they're also apparently looking into a local carrier option (which I hope they go with, ultimately). According to the Official Owners Club.

Hopefully they don't go with Vodafone.... worst network most places Auckland and tauranga from personal experience... same place my 2degree and spark numbers work perfectly.
PS: work, fun, life mobiles... not running call center or scam

 

[Matt_NZ]

I think Tesla already has a loose arrangement with Spark so that the roaming connection in the cars favour Spark networks over the others.

I've been a Vodafone user for a long time now and can't say I've had many issues with them. There will always be some places that Vodafone are stronger, and others where Spark is stronger. That might become less of an issue now that both are selling their towers to a third party.

 

[khayyam]

Presumably swapping all the SIMs would be a big job if they do change to a NZ carrier. On the other hand it's only going to get worse (presumably) if they keep putting telstra sims into all these new cars, unless telstra makes a big upgrade to their network capacity.

 

[m3lol]

Did they update the Model 3 to esims? I seem to recall that this was in the works.

If Tesla has been using esims then a network change could just be a OTA but older cars (like mine) will require a physical swap.