is your 3G better than mine?

PaulMac · Feb 25, 2015

I accept that despite a few snags that the SC are addressing, the MS is an amazing car, however after 3 months of use and 5000 miles the availability of 3G is driving me nuts.

I am yet to complete a journey with the internet radio on though the whole journey, and the map is grey most of the time. I have had the SC take a look and compared it to another MS and concluded the 3G is just not fit for purpose. When I make my iPhone act as a hotspot the service appears fine...

What is the general experience, it must just be me or there would be uproar!!??

mgboyes · Feb 25, 2015

3G service in the UK is appalling for everyone. It is by far the biggest flaw with the car today.

1. the signal (telefonica SIMs, using O2) is crap
2. the IP addresses allocated to the SIMs in the car geolocate to Spain so you can't get BBC stations on the internet radio service
3. the car's systems just don't cope at all well with intermittent/weak signal. They are good with strong signal, and fine with no signal, but when the signal is intermittent they fail really badly.

This seems to be largely a UK issue, I suspect borne out of the stupid way that 3G licenses were awarded (and the amounts charged).

Some users report good success using either their phone or a mifi type unit as a hotspot. There's even a really neat little unit that someone (EE I think?) sells that plugs straight into a lighter socket.

Sorry :-(

Rluner · Feb 26, 2015

Mines rubbish a lot too, just like you say. it's not only you.

gdavison · Feb 26, 2015

Last night (around 10pm) I was driving down the M4 out of London - No Internet radio from J7 all the way to J12 wjere I turned off - Car was showing all Full bars Edge .. So dunno what O2 was doing but there was no 3G in that zone

smac · Feb 27, 2015

I'm pretty fortunate, my car is pretty much used exclusively as a commuter car between my house and office, I get full 3G all the way in both directions. The always connected nature of the Model S is my absolute favourite thing about the car.

Of course the couple of times I've taken it out on the Motorway I get the same lack of 3G everyone else is talking about, and it's then I really miss it.

It's definitely a reason to go for the tech pack if you need navigation. Just using the base Google maps over 3G would be a real pain in the UK.

Brunel · Feb 27, 2015

I work in the industry, but not on the network side of things. However, I do think there is light at the end of the tunnel. The 4G roll-out is actually going to help 3G coverage with more cells and better coverage, there is a commitment across all operators to wipe out "not-spots" and assuming the Hutch takeover happens in the next year O2 will amalgamate the 3 coverage and since they are predicated on a 3G only network...

I am still confused by the network mast sharing deals, which I believe covers all technologies, not just 4G - O2 have stormed ahead of Vodafone in 4G rollout and customers when one would have thought an even success rate to catch up with EE and their headstart. O2 are committed to 98% coverage by 2017 (end of the year I think), but they are pushing like crazy to meet that early and the next 12 months should be interesting. Especially as the 3G refresh is accompanying the 4G programme. I get frustrated when my handset drops out on the M4 around Reading!

The O2 sims provision with Tesla is part of their M2M/IoT business unit, which is also responsible for the smart meter domestic programme for DECC. Another reason for them to get 3G coverage sorted is this focus on Internet of Things, which does not need 4G bandwidth, but does need continuous ability to communicate data at a lower bandwidth.

PaulMac · Feb 27, 2015

Thanks for the comment, so my experience is typical. If I am in a city then all okay (although can still be a little patchy, however anything else is appalling).

With EE I get better coverage, and thats just that, so I have tested creating a hotspot.
What I really don't think is right is that if my friends O2 phone is viewed it has coverage while the car is on edge, If I hotspot using this then the maps and radio are working again.
This tells me the cars 3G is part of the weakness, so a poor product with the worst network.

As almost all of my travel is up and down motorways or between superchargers such as A303 to M5 the coverage is an issue for me.

I am clearly not alone, so why is there not a lot of people taking Tesla to task on this, this is letting down the car and experience for me....which takes some doing as it is a great car.

I have two friends who have elected not to proceed with a purchase after seeing this...we need people buying these cars to keep the value in ours, and to keep Tesla investing and viable!

Puslinch · Feb 27, 2015

Having driven +250 miles yesterday from Windlesham/West Midlands return, there's almost zero service via 3G on O2. I agree with Paul the service at best is appalling and will contact Tesla today,

I would still purchase the car while 3G is nice (it's not a deal breaker), you can get around the problem if you must have a constant 3G signal.

Gary

Brunel · Mar 1, 2015

Right, full disclosure: you can guess which company I work for, but do not want to stifle critical debate! Although, my forum posts only ever reflect my personal opinion and interpretation etc.

I reached out and made contact with the person responsible for the Tesla relationship. My interpretation from a surprisingly quick response is that both Tesla and O2 are aware of the issues and seem to be working very collaboratively. It is not my place to say when an initial fix will go live, but they are working on something which will improve things. I gather that these SIMS are M2M specific and are global SIMS with Telefonica - I reckon a different configuration to handsets and different service management infrastructure underpinning it. It looks like M2M in moving vehicles is a journey of discovery compared to normal M2M. Anyway I got very positive feedback.

My thoughts about the 4G rollout were confirmed that where 4G is deployed there is a general 3G upgrade, but residential areas before motorways etc. People may have noticed that the O2 and Vodafone network asset sharing deal meant that Voda deploy in the South and West whilst O2 have rolled-out North and East first, so M4 and M5 have been further down the priority list for O2 cells. Bristol is later this year which I will really appreciate...once Voda have sorted their masts and deployed their cells I guess O2 can get on site and deploy theirs.

mgboyes · Mar 1, 2015

Brunel said:
Right, full disclosure: you can guess which company I work for, but do not want to stifle critical debate! Although, my forum posts only ever reflect my personal opinion and interpretation etc.

I reached out and made contact with the person responsible for the Tesla relationship. My interpretation from a surprisingly quick response is that both Tesla and O2 are aware of the issues and seem to be working very collaboratively. It is not my place to say when an initial fix will go live, but they are working on something which will improve things. I gather that these SIMS are M2M specific and are global SIMS with Telefonica - I reckon a different configuration to handsets and different service management infrastructure underpinning it. It looks like M2M in moving vehicles is a journey of discovery compared to normal M2M. Anyway I got very positive feedback.

My thoughts about the 4G rollout were confirmed that where 4G is deployed there is a general 3G upgrade, but residential areas before motorways etc. People may have noticed that the O2 and Vodafone network asset sharing deal meant that Voda deploy in the South and West whilst O2 have rolled-out North and East first, so M4 and M5 have been further down the priority list for O2 cells. Bristol is later this year which I will really appreciate...once Voda have sorted their masts and deployed their cells I guess O2 can get on site and deploy theirs.

TM are definitely aware of the issue, but do not seem to be doing anything quickly. It's now 9 months since first UK cars were delivered.

Patchy coverage is one thing, but allocating IP addresses to these SIMs that geolocate to being in Spain is something that the right person should be able to fix in 10 minutes by changing some settings somewhere in Telefonica's network.

Others who have investigated the shortcomings of the service have theorised that the issue is also being made worse by the fact that the mobile radio in the car may not be able to access the 900MHz band, which O2 use for some of both their 2G and 3G services (unlike for example EE whose 2G is all at 1800MHz and whose 3G is all at 2100MHz). This would mean that in lots of places where O2 has data coverage, the car wouldn't be able to connect (but a normal phone handset with an O2 retail SIM would).

[I may be misremembering the details, but there was definitely reasonably sold evidence to suggest that the cars can't access all the frequencies that the O2 network uses]

Also since these are M2M SIMs whose home network is almost certainly none of the UK networks they could easily be configured for roaming, but of course Tesla wouldn't want to incur the data charges...

Puslinch · Mar 2, 2015

I dropped a note to Tesla last week and they have been very responsive, here's from a few minutes ago, Gary;

Our Engineering team investigated the 3G issue you reported and was able to perform updates on your Model S last Saturday.

Can you please let us know, if you are experiencing any change of the 3G / infotainment performance by now and/or the next days? This will be especially interesting for your daily travelling routes Surrey- area Birmingham.
All feedback from you is helpful and of interest for our Engineering team. Thanks for your cooperation.

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is your 3G better than mine?

PaulMac

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