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Chevrolet To Offer Unlimited Data Plan With Cars (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the some-relief dept.

Chevrolet has become the first carmaker to offer an unlimited data plan with its cars. From a report on BBC: The deal, for a 4G LTE data plan, applies to cars sold in the US from 3 March and will cost $20 a month. It is being offered with the help of US carrier OnStar and will see vehicles fitted with a wi-fi hotspot that connects to the web via LTE. Chevrolet said it was offering the deal because in-car data use had grown so fast. Figures gathered by Chevrolet suggest the amount of data used via wi-fi in its cars jumped by 200% last year. In 2016, it said, Chevrolet in-car hotspots had handled about four million gigabytes of data. The LTE-based hotspots are available across the entire range of vehicles made by Chevrolet.

8 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. garage parking + wifi extender by dknj · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Home wifi for $20/mo!

    Brb buying a cheap GM

    1. Re: garage parking + wifi extender by leonbev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I wonder how much they are going to let you download before they start throttling your account.

      Otherwise, you'll have some jerk downloading a Terabyte of porn off of BitTorrent every month and slowing down everyone on the cell phone tower.

    2. Re:garage parking + wifi extender by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Skip the car, just get the SIM.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  2. Just drive by Moof123 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can only see a niche need for data in a car. Frankly I want my dash simplified down to the basics again. I don't want menus, I want a few key knobs and tactile buttons I can feel without taking my eye off the road. Give me a car without all this BS. Most of it will be obsolete long before the car is worn out, which is a major problem.

  3. What about a complete opt-out of this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is it even an option to have none of this wireless tethering to known-flawed automaker systems that aren't designed with a lick of security in mind?

  4. Re:Worthless Looking Hole Alice by Tailhook · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is that coherent to anyone?

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  5. It's a trap! by Nkwe · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you sign up for this, you sign up for all of your location data and the operational parameters of your car being constantly uploaded and sold to the highest bidder. Actually the trap has already been sprung and that data (or some of it) is already being uploaded. The real trap is that with this you get to pay for the privilege of giving up your privacy.

  6. Re:Onstar compulsory in all GM cars. OK to rp it o by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Easiest way is to disconnect the antenna and leave the rest of the system alone.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'