using gmc truck for internet hot spot

If you have a smart phone, us that. GM's "WIFI" is nothing more than a cell data connection. Marketing fluff and it costs money.

I have and here are my comments

IF you have ATT, or any other GSM phone provider for your normal phone service and wifi, GM Wifi offers little if any advantage. If your ATT phone has marginal conection or just lost it, the GM wifi/phone MAY still give you a connection.

Now if your main phone is CDMA (verizon etc.) it can be an advantage.

So, here it is

1) your connection will be via ATT so coverage is solely dependent on ATT coverage and service in the area you are in.
2) It's as good as any ATT GSM 4GLTE hotspot
3) Since it runs slightly higher power than a std cell phone, you may get coverage when a regular cell is marginal

Are cell phones are Verizon, so we normally use our verizon jetpack. But when we can't get verizon but can get ATT coverage we use the car hotspot.

Now the gotcha's.
1) The wireless hotspot range is shorter than a normal hotspot. It's likely designed assuming you are IN the vehicle. I find it works for maybe a 40 ft radius outside the truck
2) It's designed assuming your driving the truck, so it can't be turned on w/o the truck ignition being on UNLESS you do the following

a) get in the passenger side and turn the key to position 2 and let onstar etc come on
b) remove the key, and get out of the car from the PASSENGER side. Then the onstar/wifi will run for about 10 minutes, the same amount of time the radio will run after ignition is turned off.

IF you try this from the drivers side, it will turn off the INSTANT you open the drivers door!!!

I just bought a 1 year 10GB access, and use it when we can't get CDMA (verizon etc.) access. For us, the ATT is an advantage since we do have places where verizon doesn't work but ATT does. And there are equally as many places where verizon works and ATT, INCLUDING onstar phone, internet, and wifi do NOT have signal access.

Thanks ktmrfs for your explanation. My 2015 Chevy Equinox came with the WiFi feature also. We opted to skip it. Our thoughts were that, our Iphones have WiFi hot spot capability, which we use often. It would do everything the car WiFi would do, and still be portable to carry anywhere, not just the confines of the car. And although I did not have a 100% certainty, I had a suspicion it would turn off after 10 minutes leaving the car, just like the radio does.

Thanks for the confirmation we made the right move. Everything you described was what we figured out was the way it worked. AND .. you have to pay for a separate data plan for the vehicle. That was also another cost we didn't want to accrue.

Thank-you!

DutchmenSport wrote:
you have to pay for a separate data plan for the vehicle.

If your cell provider is AT&T, depending on the service you have you should be able to pay like $10/month to add your vehicle as an additional device/line on shared data. If you don't have AT&T, then yes you are stuck paying for a seperate plan.

My experience with it has been pretty good. One of the areas we vacation has poor Verizon service (my smart phone) but has good AT&T service. I paid for one month of service to have wifi while we were in that area.

My kids also loved it as they could stream media while traveling. As ktmrfs stated, the range is fairly small. While traveling in two vehicles, you had to draft very close or be side by side for the second vehicle to access the wifi. I wasn't comfortable drafting at that distance towing our trailer, so the kids in the van had to do without wifi.

I have a Volt with wifi. I use it all the time. Here's why:

1. I have ATT so it's only $10 more per month on our family data plan.
2. I can't get data service at our barn with just my cell phone. My car can and at 4G speeds. It's got a much stronger connection. I've never had it drop out around any major roads.
3. My phone doesn't try to connect to random wifi hotspots. I still haven't figured out why it does this. I've even tried turning off wifi, but it will just turn it back on. In my car, I can be assured that I'm connected to my secure wifi only.

Here's why I could live without it if I had to:

1. I've found streaming music to the car (think Pandora) causes a lot of buffering. I think it's because the stream is going through an additional device instead of being my cell phone bluetoothing into my stereo. Other people in the car have no issues streaming. It's just that weird setup.
2. I have to leave the car on to use it. I know that's an odd reason. I find when I'm in the car waiting for my daughter to finish riding, I would rather not be running the car if the weather's decent. I'd like GM to put in an option to leave the hotspot on for a half hour after the car is shut off.
3. As stated above, the wifi signal strength is limited. You won't be able to use it in your RV if that's your plan.

So, to answer your original question: No, I don't have a truck with GM's wifi, but I have a similar setup in my car. The connection is much stronger than it is for any of our family's cell phones. If your truck has it, I would use it. You can always cancel it.

IDoMyOwnStunts wrote:
I have a Volt with wifi. I use it all the time. Here's why:

1. I have ATT so it's only $10 more per month on our family data plan.
2. I can't get data service at our barn with just my cell phone. My car can and at 4G speeds. It's got a much stronger connection. I've never had it drop out around any major roads.
3. My phone doesn't try to connect to random wifi hotspots. I still haven't figured out why it does this. I've even tried turning off wifi, but it will just turn it back on. In my car, I can be assured that I'm connected to my secure wifi only.

Here's why I could live without it if I had to:

1. I've found streaming music to the car (think Pandora) causes a lot of buffering. I think it's because the stream is going through an additional device instead of being my cell phone bluetoothing into my stereo. Other people in the car have no issues streaming. It's just that weird setup.
2. I have to leave the car on to use it. I know that's an odd reason. I find when I'm in the car waiting for my daughter to finish riding, I would rather not be running the car if the weather's decent. I'd like GM to put in an option to leave the hotspot on for a half hour after the car is shut off.
3. As stated above, the wifi signal strength is limited. You won't be able to use it in your RV if that's your plan.

So, to answer your original question: No, I don't have a truck with GM's wifi, but I have a similar setup in my car. The connection is much stronger than it is for any of our family's cell phones. If your truck has it, I would use it. You can always cancel it.

you Do NOT need to leave the car on for the wifi to work. with ignition off, it will stay on for about 10-15 minutes, just like the radio. just don't open the drivers door!! then after 10 minutes, cycle the ignition to position two for 10 seconds or so and you repeat.

ktosv wrote:

DutchmenSport wrote:
you have to pay for a separate data plan for the vehicle.

If your cell provider is AT&T, depending on the service you have you should be able to pay like $10/month to add your vehicle as an additional device/line on shared data. If you don't have AT&T, then yes you are stuck paying for a seperate plan.

My experience with it has been pretty good. One of the areas we vacation has poor Verizon service (my smart phone) but has good AT&T service. I paid for one month of service to have wifi while we were in that area.

My kids also loved it as they could stream media while traveling. As ktmrfs stated, the range is fairly small. While traveling in two vehicles, you had to draft very close or be side by side for the second vehicle to access the wifi. I wasn't comfortable drafting at that distance towing our trailer, so the kids in the van had to do without wifi.

If you have ATT, yup, inexpensive to add it to your plan and share data. the downside is that as you travel you are stuck with ATT, and if your in an area w/o ATT coverage oops.

We have Verizon, so we can't add it to our plan, so we pay for 30 minutes talk time/month and 10GB data/yr, and use the car phone when driving, very convienent compared to a cell, (as long as we have coverage) and use the data when we are in a place that doesn't have Verizon/sprint (CDMA) coverage but has GSM (ATT etc.) coverage. STill have a few places we go with no cell coverage.

ktmrfs wrote:

IDoMyOwnStunts wrote:
I have a Volt with wifi. I use it all the time. Here's why:

1. I have ATT so it's only $10 more per month on our family data plan.
2. I can't get data service at our barn with just my cell phone. My car can and at 4G speeds. It's got a much stronger connection. I've never had it drop out around any major roads.
3. My phone doesn't try to connect to random wifi hotspots. I still haven't figured out why it does this. I've even tried turning off wifi, but it will just turn it back on. In my car, I can be assured that I'm connected to my secure wifi only.

Here's why I could live without it if I had to:

1. I've found streaming music to the car (think Pandora) causes a lot of buffering. I think it's because the stream is going through an additional device instead of being my cell phone bluetoothing into my stereo. Other people in the car have no issues streaming. It's just that weird setup.
2. I have to leave the car on to use it. I know that's an odd reason. I find when I'm in the car waiting for my daughter to finish riding, I would rather not be running the car if the weather's decent. I'd like GM to put in an option to leave the hotspot on for a half hour after the car is shut off.
3. As stated above, the wifi signal strength is limited. You won't be able to use it in your RV if that's your plan.

So, to answer your original question: No, I don't have a truck with GM's wifi, but I have a similar setup in my car. The connection is much stronger than it is for any of our family's cell phones. If your truck has it, I would use it. You can always cancel it.

you Do NOT need to leave the car on for the wifi to work. with ignition off, it will stay on for about 10-15 minutes, just like the radio. just don't open the drivers door!! then after 10 minutes, cycle the ignition to position two for 10 seconds or so and you repeat.

My Volt doesn't have a traditional key. As soon as you push the power button, it powers down the wifi and the USB ports. The radio will still play until you open the door. Must be unique to the car.

Thank You for all the replies. They will surely help with some decisions being on the road.
I see that having ATT cell service can be used for 10.00 more per month in conjunction with my truck wifi connection. How does that work? Do I just call ATT and tell them to add this service? Any info would be gratefully appreciated.
Thank You in advance. Tony

I agree with everything said above except Spud on a technicality. It is a more powerful hotspot than current smartphones.

Because my daughter had interviews for admission to Veterinarian Colleges, we made a trip to Tennessee/Virginia in December, and Iowa and Kansas last weekend. She was on her iPad or laptop all the time. She never lost a signal. She did some Netflix watching, as well as studying and use of Google docs.

My daughters have also used it in Michigan, and there is only one spot where it did not work. I have been able to have a signal when my ATT smartphone did not.