OVMS AT&T GoPhone SIM card installation guide

[NigelM]

I suspect that *kgb* has the streaming feature enabled. I ran it for a while to show off to some friends...it's very cool to be driving and to see the car moving across the map....but I turned it off when I saw data usage going up. It's great for tracking someone else driving the car (or if it gets stolen ) but makes no sense for me to keep it enabled. BTW, the location indicator is incredibly accurate.

[kgb]

I suspect that *kgb* has the streaming feature enabled.

nope. I have been checking in with Pay As You Go Online, but my account has not been updated with charges since April 18 at 7:30pm. I need to call them, but I am very busy.

[NigelM]

Did you take a look at "Cellular Usage" on the control page? I checked mine after 3 days of showing off the app and I've used 0.17MB so even if I continue at this rate (unlikely) I'll average out to 1.7MB a month.

BTW, an iPhone question: How do you get that screenshot? (I'm an iPhone noob)

[tomsax]

BTW, an iPhone question: How do you get that screenshot? (I'm an iPhone noob)

Press the sleep button (on the top) and the home button (below the screen) simultaneously and it will make a camera shutter sound and put the screenshot in your photo library.

[markwj]

Did you take a look at "Cellular Usage" on the control page? I checked mine after 3 days of showing off the app and I've used 0.17MB

Nigel,

That screen is based on how much data the server sends and receives to the car. It is an estimate of what the car sent/received only. The cellular providers tend to round up, and may charge more, 0.17MB in 3 days is close to 60KB a day, and what I'd expect.

Alo, regarding streaming mode, remember that is only active when an app is connected, so doesn't actually affect the usage that much nomally,

[kgb]

UPDATE:

It's now April 22 00:38
Just checked for additional charges. After $15 of charges the first day, mostly in $0.01 increments, there has been little activity.

I set it up April 18, and between 17:53 and 19:31 there were approx 3 $0.01 charges/minute and a couple $0.20 charges for SMS.
Even though I continue to use the OVMS, no charges the rest of April 18.
No charges April 19
Charges resume April 20 9:42 and end April 20 23:52
No charges April 21

AT&T says "History information may be delayed by up to 2 minutes"

So between April 19, 20, & 21, I only incurred $0.14 more in data charges.

Keep you posted (still no time to call AT&T - very busy with family stuff)

[kgb]

UPDATE:

I waited a while to see what would happen. Not sure what happened that first day, but after that the data charges slowed down significantly.

I looked at the data charges for April 20-27, and it came out to $0.71
Some days the data is $0, some days over $0.19.
What seems to take a relatively large chunk of change are the SMS which are $0.20 each.
Those occur when someone sends and SMS to the number. AT&T sent me 2. Then I get an interrupted charge SMS... but usually I'm the one to interrupt.
The data usage is not bad now, and at this rate $100 will last just shy of 3 years.

Hope this helps.

[markwj]

KGB: Good to hear it has stabilised.

The SMS notifications can be disabled in OVMS if you don't want them (change notification from "IP SMS" to just "IP"). Nothing can be done if someone sends you an SMS, but outgoing is controllable.

Out of interest, do they give you data volume? Does it come out anywhere close to the estimate 30-60KB/day?

[NigelM]

Out of interest, do they give you data volume? Does it come out anywhere close to the estimate 30-60KB/day?

In the first 9 days (where I was showing off the app many times at earth day events etc) my unit used 453kb's...simple average = 50kb's per day.

It's worth noting for other users that if you put $100 on your account and enable auto refill on the data/sms packages then the unused messages and data width don't expire for a year. I used up a lot of text messages with a problematic sim card at the beginning but in my second month I now have a balance of >350 messages available and >19.5mb data width available.

[kgb]

Out of interest, do they give you data volume? Does it come out anywhere close to the estimate 30-60KB/day?

Let me know if this helps. The AT&T webpage isn't too helpful