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Hawaii LTE upgrade

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Hello, fellow Hawaii Model S owners! I'm getting the LTE upgrade installed this very moment on Maui (ranger install), and was told I'm the first here in Hawaii to get it. I'll try to relate the improvements I observe in this thread. Anyone else thinking about it?
 
Cool! How much was the upgrade? My car was built right before LTE was standard so am thinking of upgrading. Would like to hear your thoughts on any improvements.
@nanimac, I was told $500 +tax, but will confirm this when I see the invoice. It is not a quick install, and I'm getting my annual service at the same time, so I won't have preliminary feedback until later today.
 
What firmware are you on? Over on TM there's complaints about update 2.5.26 broke 3G and LTE. But most fixed it with a scroll button reboot.

@Akikiki, as part of my annual service, I was upgraded to .36. The problem appears that the GPS and cellular antennas don't seem to be connected anymore. These were disconnected and then reconnected as part of the LTE upgrade, so something didn't go right during the installation. They're going to pull the MCU tomorrow and see what's up.
 
So, with the problems encountered with the initial upgrade, my MCU was swapped out with one that had the LTE hardware. Initial results are promising, as my map loading on the nav is MUCH faster, and the browser is faster as well (but still not great). I've also noticed that my phone app connects significantly faster than before. I'm going to drive around the island this weekend to test the coverage improvements that I'm expecting. I'll report more later. BTW, I haven't seen my invoice yet, so no update on that front.
 
I just did the LTE upgrade today. Screen refresh is much faster, but of course nowhere near the speed of a good wifi connection. Map updates are quicker, but I never felt that the map speed was a issue with 3G. Surfing is MUCH faster, but I rarely used the car for surfing before, and probably won't now. When you do need a quick lookup, the increase in speed will come in handy. Cost was $500 plus tax, if you were to pay for it. If you apply the referral credit against the cost, there is no charge for General Excise Tax so referral credit utilized is a flat $500. Honestly, I probably would not have done it if I didn't have the referral credit.
 
I just did the LTE upgrade today. Screen refresh is much faster, but of course nowhere near the speed of a good wifi connection. Map updates are quicker, but I never felt that the map speed was a issue with 3G. Surfing is MUCH faster, but I rarely used the car for surfing before, and probably won't now. When you do need a quick lookup, the increase in speed will come in handy. Cost was $500 plus tax, if you were to pay for it. If you apply the referral credit against the cost, there is no charge for General Excise Tax so referral credit utilized is a flat $500. Honestly, I probably would not have done it if I didn't have the referral credit.

so that means you can "Gift" the other half of the referral credit to the first person who asks:biggrin:, please?:smile:
 
With the recent posts on this thread, I realized I never gave an appropriate report on the improvements I've observed. First of all, the cost was indeed a flat $500 +tax. As far as performance, Maui is obviously going to be different than the other islands, but I am very happy that I got the upgrade! Outside of the very, very easternmost and westernmost points on the island, the coverage is fantastic! Besides the significant improvement in the map loading, the second-most obvious improvement is in slacker (the only service I use outside of my USB stick). Before the upgrade, there was almost always a buffering delay between songs. That delay has been 100% eliminated (at least, I haven't observed it once, yet).

With one of the earlier firmware versions (v6.2), I had a few issues with LTE and cell service disconnecting and I would have to re-boot the MCU to get it to come back. However, I haven't had a single issue since receiving v7.0 (I'm still on .56).