connectivity plan coming soon?

[Owner]

I completely agree with you on this. AT&T does now offer non-contract plans that are more reasonable. Unless you are watching videos over phone lines, you won't really be using all that much data. I'm hanging onto my iPhone 4, which is 2 1/2 years old until it really has a major issue. It does have some intermittent problems, but I don't need to throw it away just yet. And there really isn't anything compelling me to upgrade.

I am wondering how much data tethering will use to the Model S.

Or, you could keep each phone for 6 months more and come out even, keep it for three full years and come out $300 ahead, and so on. Weaning yourself off the semi-forced upgrade cycle created by that $400 subsidy is not a bad thing to me... the amount of e-waste generated by modern society is obscene, and the lack of support for older versions of phones is ridiculous. A three-year upgrade cycle to save money may be a welcome thing to many people. Knowing the true cost of a phone will also cause less distortion in buyer behavior when purchasing, and phone makers may find themselves pressured to offer more affordable versions of their phones (or in the case of Apple, to lower margins).

We may disagree, but I'm entirely in favor of separating the cost of the phone from the cost of the service. Currently, if I don't upgrade every two years I'm still paying my carrier for the subsidy I'm no longer getting. Transparency is a good thing.

 

[SeminoleFSU]

Another wonderful result of the so-called efficiency of the free market.

There is no such thing as a free market in the US. it's rampant corporatism at its best.. All the way down to our food supply

 

[Ven Rala]

I completely agree with you on this. AT&T does now offer non-contract plans that are more reasonable. Unless you are watching videos over phone lines, you won't really be using all that much data. I'm hanging onto my iPhone 4, which is 2 1/2 years old until it really has a major issue. It does have some intermittent problems, but I don't need to throw it away just yet. And there really isn't anything compelling me to upgrade.

I am wondering how much data tethering will use to the Model S.

I was wondering about this as well. I plan on tethering the car to my iPhone if the AT&T plan is expensive, but I imagine with the maps, internet radio, model S app, etc, it may eat up a lot of data.

 

[EdA]

I was wondering about this as well. I plan on tethering the car to my iPhone if the AT&T plan is expensive, but I imagine with the maps, internet radio, model S app, etc, it may eat up a lot of data.

the important thing will be to wean yourself from internet radio

 

[Owner]

Lets try to break this down:

Model S app -- probably not too much as I doubt we use this too often
Internet Radio - I probably won't use this much myself but it could be at least a fair amount of data if you use it regularly. Its not video but it would be a constant stream.
Maps -- Not all that sure about this one on a day to day basis. My map often is showing some place I am not driving (which at times I find a little wonky). And I often have it in a very zoomed out mode. But for someone who is navigationally challenged and dealing with traffic issues regularly may be more. Have no idea how much.

Even before I went no-contract with the iPhone I had the lowest data plan. In the two years I had that, I never exceeded the data and only a couple of times got near it. I was kind of surprised it was that low. But with so much wi-fi around and not watching videos, low data is surprisingly fine. I think the phone companies have somehow convinced the public they actually use much more data than they do in reality.

I was wondering about this as well. I plan on tethering the car to my iPhone if the AT&T plan is expensive, but I imagine with the maps, internet radio, model S app, etc, it may eat up a lot of data.

 

[jerry33]

Maps -- Not all that sure about this one on a day to day basis. My map often is showing some place I am not driving (which at times I find a little wonky).

That's because you don't have the blue button at the top of the map pressed (it's grey when it's just a map, blue when the map is centred around the car.

 

[Chipper]

That's because you don't have the blue button at the top of the map pressed (it's grey when it's just a map, blue when the map is centered around the car.

Thanks, Jerry! That is really good to know. I can't tell you how many times I have lost my little red car indicator and wondered where it went! I never knew about the little blue button other than to change the orientation of the map. Always new things to learn!

 

[andrewket]

I've had months over 16GB. Tethering and video will do that.

 

[Mayhemm]

My current phone plan has unlimited data but I think they throttle you if you go over 10GB. Don't think internet radio and maps would use more than that.

Only thing I have to be careful about is traveling to the USA. Roaming fees are $3-5 per MB!

 

[PhilBa]

Internet radio will cost you about 60 MB/hr. You can do the math from there but you have to do a lot of driving before it makes a major dent.

Maps are actually a pretty small user of bandwidth. When I used my phone for nav (which was a lot), I was almost always under 1 GB month and that includes email and other data but no audio/video.

 

[techMology]

Internet radio will cost you about 60 MB/hr. You can do the math from there but you have to do a lot of driving before it makes a major dent.

Maps are actually a pretty small user of bandwidth. When I used my phone for nav (which was a lot), I was almost always under 1 GB month and that includes email and other data but no audio/video.

Depends on the maps. Vector maps are bandwidth friendly, bitmap tile maps (IIRC the style Tesla are using) are pigs.

If you were using Google Maps or Apple Maps for nav, they are vector based, and you wouldn't have noticed much in the way of bandwidth usage.

 

[Owner]

Do you think Tesla refreshes the entire bitmap? Say when they add a navigation route it is the entire screen of information or just the route? If they are constantly sending full pictures in bitmapped form, could get more data usage. Also what about those really nice pictures in the dashboard. I think they are really nice looking but also helpful when it comes to lane selection on freeway exits. Are those all bitmapped too? The graphics seem more vector like? Can we save bits by keeping our maps in zoomed out mode… but that would not affect the dash display.

Depends on the maps. Vector maps are bandwidth friendly, bitmap tile maps (IIRC the style Tesla are using) are pigs.

If you were using Google Maps or Apple Maps for nav, they are vector based, and you wouldn't have noticed much in the way of bandwidth usage.

 

[techMology]

Do you think Tesla refreshes the entire bitmap? Say when they add a navigation route it is the entire screen of information or just the route? If they are constantly sending full pictures in bitmapped form, could get more data usage. Also what about those really nice pictures in the dashboard. I think they are really nice looking but also helpful when it comes to lane selection on freeway exits. Are those all bitmapped too? The graphics seem more vector like? Can we save bits by keeping our maps in zoomed out mode… but that would not affect the dash display.

The navigation elements are actually separate from Google Maps. Those (driven by Navigon) are traditional GPS navigation system elements, possibly a set of stored bitmaps (most likely) for the highway signs with some textual detail overlaid on top. The map will be vector.

Regardless, those elements on the dash aren't downloaded live over wireless. They are stored on the car's HD.

There was some speculation that Tesla was caching Google Maps tiles on the HD as well. This makes sense. For those layers/areas in which you have driven (or browsed to), those should be retrieved from the HD (if the speculation is correct). When you change zoom levels, those new layered bitmap tiles will also have to be downloaded over wireless.

Moving to fully vector maps (which may be happening in 6.0 with the other mapping improvements - my personal speculation) will reduce data usage and presumably save Tesla (for now) some money.

 

[PhilBa]

Yeah, the map tiles are cached. You can see the effect of that when driving through areas of poor coverage. Vectors will help a lot and not just with bandwidth - faster response in areas with crappy coverage and better rotation response. I hate it when I turn and the street names disappear for what seems like minutes.