using gmc truck for internet hot spot

[Tony_DiannesRV]

I currently have a 2015 GMC truck to tow our fiver. We are traveling to unknown areas soon. Not sure if we will be able to get wifi in all areas. I was wondering if anyone uses the vehicle internet that GMC offers with my truck? If so, how good is the connection?
Thanks, Tony

[Powerdude]

Standard handheld cell phones are limited to 1 W of power by the FCC.

Vehicle mounted cellular devices can be 5 W or higher.

[Tony_DiannesRV]

Thank You for all your help. I'm thinking I will give Onstar a call and use the truck also for my wifi. Ten dollars is cheap insurance in case my phone isn't cutting it.

[Lessmore]

We ordered the GM package for a month while on a trip in mountainous, isolated areas of Montana and Wyoming. Worked very well.

[IDoMyOwnStunts]

IDoMyOwnStunts wrote:

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.

I ran a test today and I have to admit that I was wrong. The Wifi does indeed stay on after I turn the car off. It's only the USB ports that power down. Thanks.

[fly-boy]

I just added it to my AT&T plan at work-
My day to day phone is Verizon but AT&T works much better than Verizon when traveling outside the US so I have a subscription for that as well...
I see the truck mostly getting used by my kids to watch movies etc...
Nice feature as is the wireless charging...

[ktmrfs]

Dadoffourgirls wrote:
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.

your correct on better reception than a traditional cell phone. The antenna has more gain than a cell phone antenna, and the car phone/wifi has a higher output power than a traditional cell phone. You'll basically get the same performance from the car system that you would get using a cell phone with one of the wilson cell phone amps and antenna.

So for places with marginal normal cell reception or just out of range of a normal cell phone the onstar & ATT is likely to get you service.

[IDoMyOwnStunts]

Tony&DiannesRV wrote:
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

It shows up as a separate phone number (Just data. No voice) for $10 on your monthly bill as part of your family plan. OnStar can add it to your plan. I did it in my car. If you have a free trial, it won't start until after your trial is over.

[Dadoffourgirls]

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.

[Tony_DiannesRV]

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

[IDoMyOwnStunts]

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.

[ktmrfs]

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]

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.

[IDoMyOwnStunts]

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.

[ktosv]

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.