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OVMS AT&T GoPhone SIM card installation guide
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DrComputer
TeslaClubLA President
With the current AT&T pre-pay plans they are going to hit you up for minimum of $8.33/month since you must either put $25 on the account which will keep it active for 90 days or you can put $100 on the account for 12 months. So the best current option seems to be to use the 10c/minute plan with no monthly charge and then have the 200SMS for $5 a month auto charge to the account. This leaves $3.33/month for th 1c/5K charges which seems like it will average out to about the correct amount. So far after about 1 month of usage for me this seems to work for me. Since there was no real cost saving to hand the $100 up front I just put the required $25 for 90 days on the account and put a reminder in Outlook to refill it. I guess after 90 days if the OVMS seems to still be the best solution (if Tesla doesn't offer something better) then I might just put the $100 on the account and not have to worry about it for another year.
smorgasbord
Active Member
I just read through AT&T's Plan Terms. It appears that if you put more money in before the current balance expires, all the money in the account gets the new expiration date. So, it's a bit of a self-inflicted Ponzi scheme, but if you're able to add money in very small amounts, it might be possible to add a few bucks each month to get the whole balance extended another month. And, if your usage is more than those few bucks, you'll eventually use that balance up.
However, I don't have an account, so I couldn't get to the site where you actually add money to the account, so I don't know if there's some minimum amount to get a 30 day extension.
So, while the money expiration thing is really annoying, there might be some ways around it.
However, I don't have an account, so I couldn't get to the site where you actually add money to the account, so I don't know if there's some minimum amount to get a 30 day extension.
So, while the money expiration thing is really annoying, there might be some ways around it.
driver_EV
Member
I will monitor the cost on my account.
Since yesterday early, I have had $.48 taken from my paygo AT&T.
This is data only, no SMS charges. A bit more than 12c.
Pay As You Go Online
NigelM
Recovering Member
AT&T changed my plan mid month. However data charges on the new plan were $1.95; although I did accidentally leave the streaming feature on for almost 2 days and the cost for those days totaled $1.08. That means my real cost for 2 weeks would have been 87cents.
I continue to build up a credit of SMS's and considered turning them off and deleting them from the plan, but as Dave points out my money will expire before I can use it up with data charges.
Whichever way you look at it, the real cost is ca. $8 per month plus hassle to refill. You can avoid the hassle by committing $100 for the year.
I continue to build up a credit of SMS's and considered turning them off and deleting them from the plan, but as Dave points out my money will expire before I can use it up with data charges.
Whichever way you look at it, the real cost is ca. $8 per month plus hassle to refill. You can avoid the hassle by committing $100 for the year.
So, get the SIM, put US$100 on the account and add the 200 SMS a month plan.
That would give you easily enough data for normal usage.up to 6 SMS messages a day, and would be good for 12 months. That works out US$8.33 a month, pre-paid 12 months.
It doesn't sound like to much hassle, so long as you pre-pay the year and nothing goes wrong to chew through your data.
Interestingly, the MVNOs I've been talking to seem to charge around the same. US$2/MB in USA works out to the same 1c per 5KB on AT&T. The MVNOs seem to have a small charge for the SIM and perhaps US$1 to US$2 administration fee per month. But, SMS is separate.
Maybe here is not the best place to ask, but anyway, I'll ask...
If I can arrange a MVNO for you guys, is that of interest? You'd get a SIM good for use on AT&T, and pre-tested with OVMS. No SMS, but data at around US$2/MB, and perhaps US$2/month admin fee - so monthly fee would total about US$6/month. Pre-paid for a minimum of 6 months or so (but term can be whatever you like). Rates in Europe would be around the same or even slightly cheaper. Interestingly, this SIM can also globally roam (more interesting, I guess to Europe, but Canada/USA is also possible).
Without SMS, for config I'm thinking of using the address book in the SIM.
Costs, fear and hassles with SIM cards and cellular arrangements has been quoted as one of the biggest hindrances with OVMS style systems. Does this address that?
driver_EV
Member
That sounds interesting to me. I am still evaluating the ATT service.
Currently cost for data looks much higher on my ATT service.
That makes your offer look very good.
Plus, ATT has customer service issues.
Currently cost for data looks much higher on my ATT service.
That makes your offer look very good.
Plus, ATT has customer service issues.
NigelM
Recovering Member
That's what I have. Although its already been noted that AT&T has service issues. we can only wonder how long till they arbitrarily change the plan again. And why do we all get spam SMS messages? Surely AT&T isn't selling the SIM numbers? :-o
I have no idea what MVNO stands for but your idea sounds good. Of course I'm pre-paid with AT&T now till next March.
Sorry, neither did I 2 months ago ;-)
MVNO is Mobile Virtual Network Operator. Another fun acronym for this is M2M - machine-to-machine.
These guys sign up roaming arrangements with big carriers (like AT&T) around the world, then sell SIMs for use in embedded devices. You pay per MB. They act like a provider (mobile network), but don't run any cell towers themselves.
The neat thing is that they are designed purely for relatively low data usage and zero voice minutes. No (or tiny) minimums. Just pay for the data used.
I have ATT and I am charged $5 for 200 messages. I just looked at my statement and using OVMS a lot--probably 10 fold over what I will use in the future just playing with it to set it up--I have 133 messages left after 3 weeks. When you pay, it expires after a certain time period. I just put $100 on the account. It expires in365 days. If you put on $25, $50, or $75--they all expire in 90 days. I also have a 10 cents/minute plan for voice calls. But there are no voice calls! Anyway, no charges for voice show up on my statement, but I don't really understand how this part of it works. Are the OVMS messages to the iPhone charged the same way the SMS messages are? Dunno...
If you are using notification type "IP", then the notifications come in as data - notifications will come in to the App and appear under "Open Vehicles" in your iPhone notification manager.
If you are using notification type "SMS", then the OVMS module sends an SMS to your smartphone - notification come in your iPhone messaging app.
If you are using notification type "SMSIP" (or some variant thereof), then notifications are sent twice - once by IP once by SMS.
SByer
'08 #383
When I got my SIM, I bought a cheap phone to use to verify the SIM setup (and SMS/data working on the carrier's network); that was a lot easier than talking to them about it being used in a piece of hardware in my car. I actually ended up needing the extra phone because I had to get a second SIM to be able to reasonably add money (my carrier requires money be added every 30 days and the only ways are via the SIM itself or via another SIM on their network. The new "Support MMI/USSD codes" on the app helps some: it allows me to send money to the SIM without the extra SIM, but the response indicating the added money doesn't make it through in that case. So I'll continue to use the second SIM so that I can relatively easily see the balance). My case is a little painful, but worth it to have the OVMS.
I assume that other people see this odd behavior also:
If I'm running the OVMS app at the time that a notification comes in from the car, the notification displays briefly on the top of the phone and then goes away (like usual), but that notification is not available in the notification manager if I subsequently pull down the manager. When the same type of notification comes in when I'm not running the app, then the notification is available in the notification manager. I assume this is an Apple bug instead of an OVMS bug/feature.
More of an Apple feature. They don't really want you to use notifications as messages, but just as notifications. Then, I say, why notifications manager?
If the App is running, the notifications don't go to notification manager, and no way to get them there. Android does this better.
I'm waiting to see what Apple does with 6.0 in a week or so before deciding what to do with this.
tomsax
Member
I pay $10/month to add the SIM to our family plan, which gives it unlimited text messages. It doesn't have a data plan, so they charge me $2/MB, which works out to about $4/month. With taxes and all, it's about $17 per month total. This setup is nice because I can switch between OVMS and the Tattler and have a plan that works well with either.
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kgb
Member
I'd like to chime in again and vote for NO PLAN (also called the "ten cents a minute plan"). I finally have a couple months of history with AT&T under my belt. I believe that anyone paying for any plan is overpaying (although we are not talking a lot of money).
The $0.10/min plan has no monthly fee and includes SMS and data features (for an additional fee). As discussed above, SMS is $0.20 per and data is $0.01/5kb. Rather than worry about expiring money, you can start with $100 on deposit with AT&T. That $100 will last 12 months. I have verified the previous facts with my experience. I have not been charged a single "feature package" charge in the past 2 months, only for data and SMS. I realize that when I first set up service, there was a lot of data charges, and I was getting nervous, but it seems to have settled down. After just shy of 2 months of use, I still have $87.33 left on account with AT&T. So, assuming I don't use the $100 and it expires, the $0.10/min plan corresponds to the $8.33/month plan. So even paying $10/month to add it to a family plan is still overpaying.
The $0.10/min plan has no monthly fee and includes SMS and data features (for an additional fee). As discussed above, SMS is $0.20 per and data is $0.01/5kb. Rather than worry about expiring money, you can start with $100 on deposit with AT&T. That $100 will last 12 months. I have verified the previous facts with my experience. I have not been charged a single "feature package" charge in the past 2 months, only for data and SMS. I realize that when I first set up service, there was a lot of data charges, and I was getting nervous, but it seems to have settled down. After just shy of 2 months of use, I still have $87.33 left on account with AT&T. So, assuming I don't use the $100 and it expires, the $0.10/min plan corresponds to the $8.33/month plan. So even paying $10/month to add it to a family plan is still overpaying.
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