Google maps work after free data period ended in 2016 S6

[dogears]

My free 4g data subscription ended around Nov 1st. I was tied up and did not get around to buying the 1gb a month access for the remaining 30 months. To my surprise, my maps still work fine, I get real time traffic updates, and the data counter shows a lot of data useage (when using the nav). I have not tried internet, but I do not use it anyway.

Anone have similar experience? No need to subscribe as long as my navigation keeps all the goodies!

[jasonlitka]

Unless you use a ton of data by using the WiFi hotspot, your free time probably isn't up. You get 6 months unlimited, plus an additional 6GB after that. I expect to go at least an extra year on that.

[Barritia]

Google maps eats data up like crazy. We done 6gig on first month on just map data.

[brianc21]

Google maps eats data up like crazy. We done 6gig on first month on just map data.

Last month my car sucked up 205.64 MB in data. All I use is Google maps. Be pretty tough to hit 6gb in just one month solely off the map.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[HyperM3]

The Google maps will still show, it just wont get updated. The traffic is updated through a different system and is lifetime.

[jasonlitka]

The Google maps will still show, it just wont get updated. The traffic is updated through a different system and is lifetime.

2016s require an active data connection for traffic. It moved from the useless Sirius for MIB-2 cars.

[HyperM3]

2016s require an active data connection for traffic. It moved from the useless Sirius for MIB-2 cars.

You are correct, I just confirmed. I also just confirmed that if you have a 2016 A6/A7/TT you get the first 6 months of AudiConnect complimentary(as we all know), but you also get an additional 6 months/6GB after that.

[jasonlitka]

You are correct, I just confirmed. I also just confirmed that if you have a 2016 A6/A7/TT you get the first 6 months of AudiConnect complimentary(as we all know), but you also get an additional 6 months/6GB after that.

It's not 6 months with that extra 6GB, I believe it's 3 years before it expires.

Edit: Just checked my account, it's unlimited for 6 months, then 6GB to be used at some point over the next 30 months. At a couple hundred MB per month, the 6GB will last a long time.

[dogears]

So, I am in the "6GB" period after expiration. I guess at some point I will be subscribing.

I wonder if they ever run specials to get subscribers. :)

[HyperM3]

It's not 6 months with that extra 6GB, I believe it's 3 years before it expires.

Edit: Just checked my account, it's unlimited for 6 months, then 6GB to be used at some point over the next 30 months. At a couple hundred MB per month, the 6GB will last a long time.

Interesting. I just called up AOA and they said that after the first 6/unlimited, the following is only 6 months or 6 Gigs(whichever gets used first).

[Barritia]

Last month my car sucked up 205.64 MB in data. All I use is Google maps. Be pretty tough to hit 6gb in just one month solely off the map.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

Well after turning off the google maps we have used way less data. Also i remember seeing that world wide Google Maps has over 20 petabytes of data. so lets say we have just 1% of that data on our car because we are just the US. Thats 210k gigabytes. Even 0.1% would be about 21k Gigabits which is way more than what our head unit could passable hold. Perhaps it's ultra compressed but what i do notice is when i have no data connection my Nav goes back to standard nav until i get data again or perhaps there's some kind of cache where it stores the most recent areas. We done 5000+miles in a month on that month we used the 6gig though. I will see what happens when i pull my sim card out.

[jasonlitka]

If you have Google Earth enabled the NAV will download the overlay for your area, I believe in a 15-20 mile radius. If you travel long distances you will need to download more data. Once it's on your system it's cached though, and won't be downloaded again unless it has to be purged because you ran out of space. I don't know how much it will cache in total but I'd bet on 8-10GB.

I don't think mine has done any significant loads after the first few weeks of driving because I rarely drive more than 50 miles from home.

[Barritia]

Tested mine today. Seems that only areas I have looked at before were there. so hard to tell if they are updated through the data connection but it did say that google maps will not update as data is not available so I guess it is use the data some way or another.

[kj71109]

My free trial period ended a month ago and I didn't realize it till my daughter was riding in the back and said she was no longer able to stream movies on her iPad. I do not currently have any at&t accounts, as our phones are through Verizon, so I looked for posts to see if I could use a Verizon sim in my car to make the data connection work. I couldn't find anything so I decided to try it out.

I took the sim for data connection out of my 4G LTE iPad, which was a nano sim, and I bought a standard sim adaptor from amazon. I put them together and pushed them into the sim slot on my car (2016 A6). I then went into the connection settings and changed the APN to: vzwinternet. At first I was thinking oh no, so much for that plan, as in the bottom right there was no LTE signal showing up or service bars on the MMI. So I pulled out my phone and switched wifi signal to my cars, and started testing web pages and various apps and all worked!! I then went and switched navigation to google maps and it loaded insanely fast, much faster than at&t previously. Also checked Audi connect and all loaded as well. So far so good!!

So for right now it looks like a data card from Verzion with a standard sim card adaptor will work in the 2016 LTE cars.