Dan Nagy

I'll see if changing the maps program does anything. otherwise, I'll just let the thing run out.

dflowerz

So the data Sirius Radio uses is part of the subscription for that radio service?

I do not use it so am trying to learn something.

The ATT 1gig plan is separate from the Sirius Radio?

Sirius Radio must be digital audio so is data, it is just a question of how it is paid for.

997rs4.0

Think something is going on with ATT and apple 7!
I had the same thing happening to me. Phone ate thru the data without me using it. Turned the phone back in to apple.

budrichard

I will ask the question, one last time.

"What iphone are you using and whose Data Plan did you subscribe to?"
Without that information, I cannot help you. I suspect that your iPhone is chewing through your Data.

As to Sirius XM, for your vehicle, the signal is digital, broadcast from a satellite and as such has no Data Transmission fee except that you pay for a subscription to the service.
Sirius XM is also available as an Internet based App where you do pay for Data Transmission. This is totally separate from your vehicle.
Sirius will sell you plans that include both services as I have.
In an older vehicle, I run Sirius XM on my iPhone App.-Richard

Gary JR

Satellite, like GPS. Leave your phone at home and notice how Sirius still works in your car.

Dan Nagy

Yep, that thought came to me. When I jumped into the car to go home yesterday afternoon I checked to see if my iPhone had logged in. It had. I am not sure about other providers, but AT&T always defaults to WiFi, so all my work email and other updates were going through the car's WiFi. (Be advised - I do not use my phone while driving except for calls). Therefore, under utilities and WiFi, I "forgot" the network.

Thanks all!

Gary JR

Nope. They were going through Bluetooth.

dflowerz

My iPhone 7 plus connects to the car through bluetooth to play music from my phone. It can also connect by cable to use Apple Carplay. The third way is connecting using wifi with the car as a wifi hotspot. Or the car can connect through the phone using the phone as a wifi hotpsot. Depends on whether you want to use the car or phone data plan. But if the OP selects forget this network (the car's wifi) in the wifi setting, pretty sure he was using car data via wi-fi. I recall connecting via wi-fi to the car too but I disabled it.

kayjh

I'm not sure I understand why I would want to have a second data plan specifically for the car itself when I have a data plan for my phone. Am I missing something?

budrichard

If AT&T supplies your Mobil carrier than the car is just daisy chained to your Data Plan and the Data Plan is shared among devices.

For the car, the supplied SIM comes originally with AT&T Data and you must pay $10/month to AT&T after the gratis Data Plan is over.
If you do as I did and use your iPhone or any other mobil as a Wi-Fi Hotspot, you get Nav directions but not real time data and rerouting.
After finding myself at a completely blocked road, I activated the AT&T Data and found that I would have been rerouted with AT&T, so now I pay the $10/month and it's just added to my AT&T bill.
-Richard

kayjh

So, the value of the in car data plan is to get live traffic updates? Does it do anything else? I know this is a common feature in high end cars these days, so there must be a feature set that makes the manufacturers think they should have in car data. Its a bit clearer now, thanks.

Dan Nagy

Exactly. Also, I am an original AT&T iPhone customer so I still have their unlimited plan. This plan does not allow me to tether any device. For $10 bucks a month, it is worth the price for the traffic data, especially in DC/VA.

budrichard

BlueTooth involves compression while USB cable is lossless for Music(Music is Apple's name for where your songs are stored on an iDevice), so i always connect my iPhone to the car by USB cable.-Richard

Gary JR

Using car data wi-fi for what?

Send email to yourself, turn off your phone, start the car and see if you get the email, messages or play music from your phone.

dflowerz

Not something I am interested in using, but it could come in handy is certain situations where cellular usage from the phone might be expensive so cheaper to connect via wi-fi to the car and use the car's cellular data. Example is having visitors from another country who don't want to use their phone cell data because it costs too much but wifi is always OK and they are using my Porsche cellular data. Same as me visiting a foreign country and wanting to use minimal cell data, preferring wi-fi. Another situation might be where a passenger's cell provider may not connect but the ATT is connecting in the car so using the wifi connection in the car allows the passenger to get connected.

I agree, that in most situations this is not necessary which I why I turned off my phone trying to connect to the car via wifi.

A few years ago we did a trip with a bunch of friends and family from Brazil and they had some standalone device they got from the car rental agency that had a cell connection and allowed all of them to connect their phones to it via wi-fi.