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Connectivity: Internet speed

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The other day I had five bars and music wasn't playing. Okay, it was... but in short bursts of half a second. When it's in that mode it's almost impossible to turn off the music! You can't pause it when it's not playing.

Frustrated I flipped to the Settings / Apps page and noticed that there was an option to set the quality for Slacker music to "Medium". I tried that and it worked much better. For now I'm leaving it on that setting.

It's certainly true that having only 1 bar causes problems with the data rate. But conversely 5 bars does NOT guarantee decent data rates. There's more to this...
 
The other day I had five bars and music wasn't playing. Okay, it was... but in short bursts of half a second. When it's in that mode it's almost impossible to turn off the music! You can't pause it when it's not playing.

Frustrated I flipped to the Settings / Apps page and noticed that there was an option to set the quality for Slacker music to "Medium". I tried that and it worked much better. For now I'm leaving it on that setting.

It's certainly true that having only 1 bar causes problems with the data rate. But conversely 5 bars does NOT guarantee decent data rates. There's more to this...

Good find on the slacker quality setting. And yes, the 5 bars isn't the only factor as we know. We need some transparent information coming from the source (Tesla :) )
 
Ok, perhaps I'm misinformed but I didn't really think bar count was about bandwidth but rather about signal strength. Granted, you're likely to not have reliable bandwidth with low signal strength. But signal strength does not imply high bandwidth.
 
Ok, perhaps I'm misinformed but I didn't really think bar count was about bandwidth but rather about signal strength. Granted, you're likely to not have reliable bandwidth with low signal strength. But signal strength does not imply high bandwidth.

Absolutely correct and that is what most have been saying in the recent posts. You need good signal for good bandwidth but having it does not dictate fast speed. The amount of bandwidth you get is very dependent on what the carrier "decides" to give you. Think of it like your cable internet at home. you have a constant signal quality but based on the plan you are on, the cable operator can throttle your speed at will. The cell carriers can do the same. They manage speed based on plans and traffic and capacity.
 
Ok, perhaps I'm misinformed but I didn't really think bar count was about bandwidth but rather about signal strength. Granted, you're likely to not have reliable bandwidth with low signal strength. But signal strength does not imply high bandwidth.

Yes, the communications are only as fast as the weakest link. With poor reception you may not be able to transfer data reliably, so the effective throughput goes down. However, decent signal strength isn't enough.

The thing is, with the relatively modest throughput of the Model S modem under ideal conditions, there really is no excuse for the data rate to be even slower. Something is up with that.
 
Absolutely correct and that is what most have been saying in the recent posts. You need good signal for good bandwidth but having it does not dictate fast speed. The amount of bandwidth you get is very dependent on what the carrier "decides" to give you. Think of it like your cable internet at home. you have a constant signal quality but based on the plan you are on, the cable operator can throttle your speed at will. The cell carriers can do the same. They manage speed based on plans and traffic and capacity.

Yeah I have this happen at the airport every time I am there. I get maximum bars, because you need coverage at an airport! But speeds are horrible because there are so many people clogging the towers.

And I find it sad but my HSPA+ phone and the phone's browser is much faster than the Tesla's browser. Not a nice to navigate, or read on, but faster.