in-car hotspot is becoming increasingly common.
 

So why is this important?

BMW's Car Hotspot LTE means Bavarian Motor WiFi

"up to eight client devices" ---- I wonder how many people will leave their networks open with this. Guess it'll be easy enough to spot. lol

I use a verizon Mifi for work and it makes family vacation just awesome.:thumbup:

I think this is great. As someone who is always out on the road with sometimes questionable cell service a in-car WIFI spot would be great

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this using a cell signal to link up the wifi router? If there is poor cell service, wouldn't this device suffer more?

Unless you get one from a different carrier.

Correct and that makes all the difference. Having your cell from AT&T and your MIFI (like I have) from Verizon really helps expand your service area

Seems to me that it's just more vaporware that car makers
will charge an arm an leg for. Just another feature that in a few
years will be rendered useless.

It is not vaporware but the function is redundant since most smart phones can function as a hot spot. My guess is that the signal should be better since the car would have a external antenna?

With 4G most providers are billing base on usage and they seem to charge a lot.

That's how I have it set up as well. Just love it.

:iagree:

Except on the East Coast where AT&T LTE is just making it to secondary cities. Audi's built-in hotspots are proprietary T-Mobile. What a waste (sorry, but their 4G doesn't cut it for 75+% of US consumers).

Being said, I really don't see the appeal to built in LTE. It's just going to become obsolete and incompatible sooner - especially in the EU where hopping country borders means mobile data is outrageously expensive. I can tether to my iPhone and iPad (granted, both Verizon) and the only possible plus I can see would be if the car's antenna works a lot better.

While the Verizon technology is far more superior (CDMA) than the GSM, the almost omnipresent GSM coverage worldwide would make a sense to have a GSM SIM card slot in the car for the hotspot... On the other hand, the phone handsets are notoriously LOCKED to the providers here in the US - how would car manufacturers justify locking the device inside the car? this is not a $300 handset, this is a $50K, or $30K investment and the buyer would expect to use HIS provider of choice.

Another thing is having a USB port that would take the dongle and let the dongle be the hotspot... or something along those lines...

I must admit, the internet on the go is a very cool thing - when we were back in the US 2004, we used the tethering on the laptop, and my wife used to chat to her friends while we were on long trips... in the last decade the technology has improved so much...