NEW Connected Car DATA SIM

[Lexman8]

Also, what about roaming? A number of us on here take our cars to Europe.

(Btw, for those with data SIMs from Three, they are only 4G capable within the UK. When you roam with them they drop to 3G. I only found this out a couple of weeks ago.)

[tem]

Originally Posted by Lexman8

Also, what about roaming? A number of us on here take our cars to Europe.

(Btw, for those with data SIMs from Three, they are only 4G capable within the UK. When you roam with them they drop to 3G. I only found this out a couple of weeks ago.)

I find 3G to be fine, when roaming with the Three sim.
No extra costs, you only use the data allocated to the card.

My current Three sim, expires at the beginning of September.
It started off by connecting my V60 and then the V90.
I have used it to roam 4 times and regularly listen to TuneIn and receive RTTI information and download the odd OTA updates.
I just recently checked the amount of the 12GB used and it is just over 4GB's.

This sim cost £30, but will be replacing it with one of the ones that came from Switzerland, at around £25.

tem.

[smj1873]

Originally Posted by Lexman8

Also, what about roaming? A number of us on here take our cars to Europe.

(Btw, for those with data SIMs from Three, they are only 4G capable within the UK. When you roam with them they drop to 3G. I only found this out a couple of weeks ago.)

Our SIM's are O2, EE or Vodafone and it would be network dependent as to whether when it roams it goes onto a 4G signal. It will vary as to what country and network and if it was something a customer was particular on then we can look to find a solution quite easily.

[apnicolle]

I travel a lot, too much some might say, and have found that 3 sometimes in France and USA offer 4G despite claiming that they don't. O2 have no 4G roaming agreements, despite being Telefonica. EE in France, Belgium and Italy gave me 4G (I left EE in 2015 so not sure the situation now). Vodafone always roams on 4G / LTE although that's a business account so maybe different.

Coming back to offering the SIM at a dealer level, of course it should happen. We're talking about fairly expensive cars so why is it not included - it's like Volvo are offering half a feature! Bearing in mind that many people are not tech-savvy to the degree you often seem to need to be with new cars, anything that simplifies the process sound like a good idea to me.

[smj1873]

Originally Posted by apnicolle

I travel a lot, too much some might say, and have found that 3 sometimes in France and USA offer 4G despite claiming that they don't. O2 have no 4G roaming agreements, despite being Telefonica. EE in France, Belgium and Italy gave me 4G (I left EE in 2015 so not sure the situation now). Vodafone always roams on 4G / LTE although that's a business account so maybe different.

Coming back to offering the SIM at a dealer level, of course it should happen. We're talking about fairly expensive cars so why is it not included - it's like Volvo are offering half a feature! Bearing in mind that many people are not tech-savvy to the degree you often seem to need to be with new cars, anything that simplifies the process sound like a good idea to me.

Thanks very much for your comments. I was personally quite let down by the dealer experience and it wasn't until I really explored the market and knew exactly what the car required that this came to fruition. We have taken several years to negotiate our deals with the networks and are really more than happy to work with any dealer to offer these deals to customers.

[tem]

Originally Posted by smj1873

Our SIM's are O2, EE or Vodafone and it would be network dependent as to whether when it roams it goes onto a 4G signal. It will vary as to what country and network and if it was something a customer was particular on then we can look to find a solution quite easily.

Just checked my Three connection.
Download: 48.38Mbps.
Upload: 31.28Mbps.
This is faster than my home fibre internet connection.

As far as O2, EE and Vodafone goes, the only other carrier that gives 4G, is EE and that is very poor.
Where I live, I will stay with Three.
Been with them for many years, and no problems.

tem.

[nu11eaf]

Originally Posted by smj1873

Thanks very much for your comments. I was personally quite let down by the dealer experience and it wasn't until I really explored the market and knew exactly what the car required that this came to fruition. We have taken several years to negotiate our deals with the networks and are really more than happy to work with any dealer to offer these deals to customers.

It would be a good marketing ploy to get Volvo or any other manufacturer to include a free data sim with the new car with the strong possibility that cusomers would renew the card or top up the data with the same company as the original if they are happy with the service.
Especially if there was clear easy instruction on how and where to do so included in a hand over pack with the car.

[Lexman8]

Originally Posted by apnicolle

Vodafone always roams on 4G / LTE although that's a business account so maybe different.

I have a personal Vodafone account and it too roams on 4G/LTE.

I've given up using a Three SIM fitted in the car as the coverage and speed is noticeably inferior to tethering my 4G phone. This is probably a result of where I live and the car having only a 3G modem.

I use Macrodroid on the phone to partially automate the tethering process and it works well. Also, my phone contract comes with 16GB of data per month so there's little point in buying more data on a separate SIM.

[smj1873]

Originally Posted by Lexman8

I have a personal Vodafone account and it too roams on 4G/LTE.

I've given up using a Three SIM fitted in the car as the coverage and speed is noticeably inferior to tethering my 4G phone. This is probably a result of where I live and the car having only a 3G modem.

I use Macrodroid on the phone to partially automate the tethering process and it works well. Also, my phone contract comes with 16GB of data per month so there's little point in buying more data on a separate SIM.

Thanks for your feedback Lexman. What we've found is that the tethering process puts a lot of people off of connecting and many people just go without a connection. Another issue I've found is that not all phone contracts allow free tethering and charge extra or many people have contracts that don't have enough Data and the customer needs to pay extra to accommodate the new car if they want to connect it. Having the SIM in at the start simplifies the whole process.

[philsuarez]

I'd be interested as although i have tethering you can't use this as a data connection whilst using apple CarPlay. Car arriving at Christmas so keep us posted.