With more and more cars offering WiFi connections let’s take a look at the economics. Is it worth paying for a mobile hotspot powered by your car?
The technology that a car uses is no different than what a portable WiFi hotspot (often called a MiFi or similar) uses. It connects to a local cell tower to get 4G LTE data and then broadcasts a local WiFi network that you can connect to. You still have to pay the service provider for the cellular access and this is generally done with a data limit per month.
Some cars connect the car’s infotainment system to the network to offer additional services (like Yelp or streaming audio) directly from the car. This would be instead of connecting your phone to those services and then your phone to the car. If that’s important to you then a connection directly from the car may be worthwhile.
The pricing for the data on your cell phone is something you’re probably already paying for so it’s a sunk cost.
The pricing for the car’s connection has a wide range depending on the car and cell provider. For example AT&T which covers Audi, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Jaguar, Land Rover, Porsche and Volvo offers pricing depending on if you are an existing AT&T customer or not.
OnStar equipped cars follow AT&T’s rates:
Infiniti has ridiculous pricing of $19.95 per month for just 1GB of data:
You could also get a WiFi hotspot that plugs into any USB or power outlet that you can take with you. Those have a pre-paid rate $25/month for 2GB of data (sample AT&T pricing) and are useful when you’re not sitting in your car. Or you can add a tethering plan to your phone for around $15/month.
Is 1GB of data enough for a month? Probably not if you want to stream music or have kids that want to upload non-stop Snapchat videos.
So, is it worth it? Probably not but it will depend on your exact car and usage. But be careful not to go over your plan or you’ll owe thousands of dollars you didn’t plan on paying.
