It looks like I have LTE enabled

[Cottonwood]

I still wonder if a upgrade is technically possible on my 2013 Model S. Swap of modem would be doable, but would it require a change of antennas?

It most likely would not require a change of the antenna. Most cellular carriers are deploying LTE on the same frequency bands as were used for 3G. It is the carrier frequency (frequency band) that determines the antenna design, not physical-layer, modulation design.

 

[arg]

It most likely would not require a change of the antenna. Most cellular carriers are deploying LTE on the same frequency bands as were used for 3G. It is the carrier frequency (frequency band) that determines the antenna design, not physical-layer, modulation design.

In Europe, it's more complicated since there's both new allocations and re-farming of existing allocations, and also the existing 2G/3G allocations are not the same between the different operators.

For example, in the UK where we have four operators:

Operator	2G	3G	LTE
EE	1800MHz	2100MHz	800, 1800(ex-2G), 2600MHz
Three	No 2G	2100MHz	800, 1800(Purchased from EE)
Vodafone	900MHz	900(ex-2G), 2100MHz	800, 2600MHz
O2 (as currently used by Tesla)	900MHz	900(ex-2G), 2100MHz	800MHz

LTE allocations above are what they have licenses for; not necessarily using all of them yet - not least because customers don't yet have phones for them (iPhone5 for example supports LTE on 1800MHz but not 800MHz).

The Model S definitely supports 900MHz and 2300MHz for 3G and 900MHz for 2G, probably 1800MHz as well. They would have no reason to have antennae suited for 800MHz, unless for deliberate future-proofing.

So my guess would be that if you upgraded the radios without upgrading the antennae, you would get LTE in some areas but not all. However, if you are looking to LTE for coverage rather than throughput it's likely to be that missing 800MHz that's most important.

 

[wk057]

Someone with LTE enabled remove your center screen assembly and tell us what cellular modem module you have. That'll tell us for sure.

 

[widodh]

In Europe, it's more complicated since there's both new allocations and re-farming of existing allocations, and also the existing 2G/3G allocations are not the same between the different operators.

For example, in the UK where we have four operators:

Operator	2G	3G	LTE
EE	1800MHz	2300MHz	800, 1800(ex-2G), 2600MHz
Three	No 2G	2300MHz	800, 1800(Purchased from EE)
Vodafone	900MHz	900(ex-2G), 2300MHz	800, 2600MHz
O2 (as currently used by Tesla)	900MHz	900(ex-2G), 2300MHz	800MHz

LTE allocations above are what they have licenses for; not necessarily using all of them yet - not least because customers don't yet have phones for them (iPhone5 for example supports LTE on 1800MHz but not 800MHz).

The Model S definitely supports 900MHz and 2300MHz for 3G and 900MHz for 2G, probably 1800MHz as well. They would have no reason to have antennae suited for 800MHz, unless for deliberate future-proofing.

So my guess would be that if you upgraded the radios without upgrading the antennae, you would get LTE in some areas but not all. However, if you are looking to LTE for coverage rather than throughput it's likely to be that missing 800MHz that's most important.

Good point about 800Mhz. That was the problem with the iPhone 5 and got fixed with the 5s.

I really want LTE since that makes the Nav and Radio a lot better. 800Mhz LTE is what you want.

 

[steph280]

That's more like it.

Do you find everything loading significantly quicker?

Like somebody said there's no reference for me to compare with. I do have relative and friends with older Teslas, will do some comparison once I see them.

I do find interesting the download speed is much lower than upload. On my iPhone (which should also be on the same AT&T LTE tower) it tested 12.6Mbps down and 4.54 Mbps up. Maybe Tesla intentionally set them up this way to collect traffic and drive data for Autopilot purposes?

 

[mspohr]

Like somebody said there's no reference for me to compare with. I do have relative and friends with older Teslas, will do some comparison once I see them.

I do find interesting the download speed is much lower than upload. On my iPhone (which should also be on the same AT&T LTE tower) it tested 12.6Mbps down and 4.54 Mbps up. Maybe Tesla intentionally set them up this way to collect traffic and drive data for Autopilot purposes?

It is odd that the upload speed is much higher than download. Usually it's the other way around.
My Google Nexus 5 LTE phone on T-Mobile gets 73 Mbps download and 15.5 Mbps upload with a 148 ms latency.

 

[rdrcrmatt]

Someone with LTE enabled remove your center screen assembly and tell us what cellular modem module you have. That'll tell us for sure.

Got a procedure on how to do that?

I'd love to know how to properly take the car apart!

 

[R²B]

Anybody have the chance to get to the bottom of any of this with Tesla?

 

[freelancer]

I just got a call from the service rep that I test drove with this past sunday. he said that all cars that have shipped/built/ordered in the past 2 weeks will have the 4G LTE and that he's gotten the same question asked quite a few times now.

 

[schneiderjohn]

Here's what my 85D (P70XXX, built sometime in late Feb / early March), reported tonight (v6.2 2.4.236):

 

[wk057]

Got a procedure on how to do that?

I'd love to know how to properly take the car apart!

Could probably get it.

 

[ecarfan]

Anybody have the chance to get to the bottom of any of this with Tesla?

Today my parents are taking delivery on two new 85D's. First thing I am going to do is check for LTE, and I will ask the DS if he/she is seeing it in all cars being delivered now. I'll report back. If I you don't hear from me, send me a pm.

 

[Cyclone]

Today my parents are taking delivery on two new 85D's. First thing I am going to do is check for LTE, and I will ask the DS if he/she is seeing it in all cars being delivered now. I'll report back. If I you don't hear from me, send me a pm.

Like son like parents, eh?

 

[MartinAustin]

Here's what my 85D (P70XXX, built sometime in late Feb / early March), reported tonight (v6.2 2.4.236):

I am surprised it's uploading 36Mbit/sec over 3G. But your picture says it

 

[MuppetOwl]

I am surprised it's uploading 36Mbit/sec over 3G. But your picture says it

I also get very high upload sometimes on 3G. Think it is just a error

 

[travwill]

I also get very high upload sometimes on 3G. Think it is just a error

Yeah, we need to find a better test site to use somehow. That isn't even possible so all these results seem unreliable at this point. But, the good news is we have LTE out so lets REST it at that ;-)

 

[finallybuying]

High upstream and lower downstream speeds are often a result of a speed cap (or "throttling") of the downstream speed. It wouldn't shock me if they were intentionally capping the downstream speed. ISPs do do this frequently. There's less need to cap upstream as it is less used (and not capping it makes things seem snappy with less cost to the ISP). No idea if that's what's happening but it is a good guess.

 

[R²B]

I just want to know how Tesla plans to roll this out to the fleet...

 

[ecarfan]

I just want to know how Tesla plans to roll this out to the fleet...

It is a hardware change, so Tesla won't be automatically updating older cars to LTE, if that is what you are expecting. I believe there was an indication from Tesla that it would be available as a hardware upgrade, for a price. The upgrade price has not been announced yet.

 

[R²B]

It is a hardware change, so Tesla won't be automatically updating older cars to LTE, if that is what you are expecting. I believe there was an indication from Tesla that it would be available as a hardware upgrade, for a price. The upgrade price has not been announced yet.

Is there a potential that something like this might be covered under a service ($600) appointment?