I have little interest in the Porsche Car Connect services, since Remote Services ($119/year for remote trip statistics, remote vehicle status, car finder, remote door locking (but not UNLOCKING?), geo-fencing), Safety Services ($159/year for airbag deployment notification and breakdown calling), and Security Services ($219/year for advanced theft detection and 24/7 vehicle tracking) are pretty lame considering the costs. Yes, there are discounts if you subscribe to more than one, but it's still a lot for what you're getting.

My biggest concern regards the Navigation and Infotainment Services package for Connect Plus. Google Earth and Street View are listed in this $155/year subscription package. I'm fine with these services requiring me to provide them a data connection, but it was never clearly disclosed that there would be ongoing charges for the privilege of simply accessing these. The US configurator says this:

Includes:

Apple CarPlay™
4G LTE Module
Updatable onboard maps (first 3 years)
AT&T SIM Card Data Trial
Google® StreetView
Google® Earth
Online Destination Search
Real Time Traffic Information
Porsche Car Connect

The operative word is *Includes.* But if one goes to the page for Navigation and Infotainment services it says:

12 months trial period if you buy a vehicle equipped with Connect Plus

It would be nice if the configurator linked the subscription details in the description popup, but it doesn't. In fact, it goes into a bit of round-about detail on the Porsche Car Connect Services and that it requires a service contract with a 3rd party, but not a word about the Google features.

A further point of confusion- does the $155/year include the data connection, or is this still leeching off a user supplied plan? For $155/year, that would be reasonable if it included the data connection. Again, no clear word on this- at least not on the Navigation and Infotainment Services pages of the Porsche Connect Store. Only this little oddball nugget dropped in a paragraph about real-time traffic information:

You can update your map material via your Internet connection, saving you a pit stop at the workshop.

Nothing about the Google or other services make any mention of *your Internet connection.*

 

When my the "replacement" car arrives (waiting on PCM), I will have another discussion with Porsche...this time on the $155 fee to get what was "included" when I ordered the car and connect + feature. I believe they should (read that as have to) waive the fee since it wasn't disclosed. There are actually laws that stop a vendor from deciding to charge a fee for something they sold as "included". One could easily believe that the VW group and Porsche don't care much for US laws....

 

I wrote PCNA to get clarity on the subscription services, what will work without an ongoing fee, what requires a user provided data connection, and what the trial periods are on the Porsche Car Connect services and here's the reply (emphasis mine):

Apple CarPlay will continue to work as it is not tied to any trial periods. The PCM mirrors your phone when the phone is connected to the lightning cable and the vehicle. Also, in regards to the Google Street View and Google Earth, this option would require your vehicle to have a working internet connection.

A data connection is required in addition to your subscription for the Google Street View and Google Earth. For more details, please follow the link: Homepage - Porsche Connect Store United States of America

In regards to the Porsche Car Connect, for Non-Hybrid cars, the trial period lasts one year, and only includes the Remote Service. Only Hybrid vehicles receive all three services (Remote, Security, and Safety) under the trial period.

So there we have it.
1. Google Earth and Street View require a subscription if you want to continue using them after the 1 year trial.
2. There is only a trial period for the Remote Service in the Porsche Car Connect suite of subscriptions (unless you have a hybrid)

 

I wrote PCNA to get clarity on the subscription services, what will work without an ongoing fee, what requires a user provided data connection, and what the trial periods are on the Porsche Car Connect services and here's the reply (emphasis mine):



So there we have it.
1. Google Earth and Street View require a subscription if you want to continue using them after the 1 year trial.
2. There is only a trial period for the Remote Service in the Porsche Car Connect suite of subscriptions (unless you have a hybrid)

Mr Pine will soon receive one more letter. They can't just add a subscription fee for google apps when they sell the feature saying it is included.....that's a potential legal issue.

 

You guys get a hang-up on a singel word on a webpage that says "included" in a web-configurator? It's not that you finalize the car purchase online. I suggest that you guys take a read here before you send further e-mails. Specifically the section "Disclaimer" Porsche Legal Notice - Porsche Cars North America

 

You are right, of course, this would never make it to any court...but it might make it to some state consumer protection agency. The $'s are insignificant...the business policy is really the issue...and the boilerplate you point to is just that...similar to many CYA terms and conditions that are routinely thrown out because they are one sided.

But let me give you some other thoughts on some (hypothetical) Porsche web and policy changes that will be made later today....applicable to your car which you already purchased, of course. Both are applicable to all 2017 models, irrespective of what was on the web or you were told or not told by your dealer.


1) sports plus mode includes a one year trial license...if you want to continue to use the sports + mode or launch control after one year, you have to pay $200 per year for the function. You can, of course use the dash gauge without any additional charge.

2) The navigation feature comes with a one year license. After one year, if you wish to continue to use navigation, there is a license fee of $200 per year.

Are you OK with those type of changes?

 

I think there is a big difference between the examples you provide and the 3rd party services that porsche source for it's Connect services. But I won't go into a detailed discussion about this since I don't find it relevant. What I wanted to point out with my post was that no web site content should be treated as absolute correct. Hence the disclaimers that is commonly used. As consumers we should be well aware of this and treat the information accordingly.

There are lot's of other errors in the configurator. BOSE for instance is specified to be 545watts, but it's actually 665watts from MY17. So you're getting something better than specified.... Maybe it is possible to make a legal thing out of this also? Higher wattage specified might cause hearing issues.

 

I think there is a big difference between the examples you provide and the 3rd party services that porsche source for it's Connect services. But I won't go into a detailed discussion about this since I don't find it relevant. What I wanted to point out with my post was that no web site content should be treated as absolute correct. Hence the disclaimers that is commonly used. As a consumer we're well aware of this and should treat the information that way also.

There are lot's of other errors in the configurator. BOSE for instance is specified to be 545watts, but it's actually 665watts from MY17. So you're getting something better than specified....

Actually, no difference at all.....you are being billed by Porsche in all the cases...and whether they deliver it themselves or through a third party has nothing to do with the issue.

As far as the subscriptions, if porsche doesn't tell you about the subscriptions and the dealer doesn't tell you about the subscriptions....how is the consumer supposed to know about the ongoing subscription fee....if you believe all the disclaimers of course, the consumer is to blame for not knowing what he isn't told This is the type of issue the EU seems to get involved in....it would probably be a big issue in the UK....in the US, probably not so much as consumers really have little real protection other than the legal system, sometimes.

 

I have a question, about how to use Navigation, yesterday I had to go to the city called Grand Valley in Ontario, far and rural area, I put in the city name, no problem, but when I tried to put the address, County road, it didn't give the option to put this name in. I tried a few times. At the end, I couldn't use it, just use the map to see where I was driving all the time, but I saw the Route #25 , on the map, and that is where I was going to....County Rd. 25 North. I had no problem coming home using navigation because I live in the big city, the address is recognized in the nav system. But when I tried even to put just the highway number on the navigation, it doesn't recognize it. How do you put just let say highway #401 , or highway #10 on the navigation, would it work. Can you just put the city name on the nav for the destination?
Anyone has the same problem using Nav?

 

You can just put in a city name with or without a street name

As far as your 25 North...I have that all the time....sometimes it's highway 25, sometimes it's 25 N, sometimes it's the name of the road (which I never know). This isn't unique to Porsche....

 

Thanks @ghstudio, so what do you put in the Nav, if you want to go to let say route # 25, I tried highway 25 it didn't seem to work.

 

Sometimes you can just enter a 2 in street name and then select "list"...and you'll be given a list of street names in the city you've entered starting with those starting with 2. Like if you know your destination is on Berber street or was it Barbour street or Barber street...you can just enter a B and see a list of streets to see which spelling is right.

 

I think it's well understood that mistakes are bound to happen and there's no better place than the internet to find them. Sure, blanket disclaimers are provided as a catch-all for unintended mistakes- and that's fine. To me, a lot of agreements and EULAs are incomprehensible to the average person and in general are consumer-hostile.

Connect Plus, in my opinion has been misrepresented by omission. It's not just the configurator- most mentions are mum on subscription services. Without paying those subscription charges, what we bought was Apple CarPlay and an LTE Hotspot. All the connected services in my previous cars were all gimmicks at best, junk at worst. From all appearances, it looked like Porsche put some thought and effort into this to bring PCM up to date. While PCM 4.0 is indeed brilliant, especially when compared to the previous generation, there is nothing compelling <to me> to pay the up to $454/year plus data plan costs for those services (YMMV)- other than maybe Google Earth and Street View. It's disappointing that these are behind paywalls. In a previous post I questioned whether this is even allowed in Google's usage guidelines.

 

Thanks so much @ghstudio for your fast response. I will give it a try today.

 

PCM Hot Spot

Have you tried using your phone as the hotspot for the PCM instead of the SIM provided? I asked Porsche if this would be possible and was answered in the affirmative. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I am waiting for my Macan S (now at the Port of Houston) with Connect+. It has been delayed due to the unavailability of the head units.

 

Have you tried using your phone as the hotspot for the PCM instead of the SIM provided? I asked Porsche if this would be possible and was answered in the affirmative. Perhaps my question was misunderstood. I am waiting for my Macan S (now at the Port of Houston) with Connect+. It has been delayed due to the unavailability of the head units.

I have a MY17 GTS with Connect and Connect+. If you take out the SIM card the PCM will ask you for a WIFI connection to connect to and you can easily use your phone as a hotspot. You can even use a small hotspot if you have one. I have even used my home WIFI while my car is parked in the garage. You could even connect to a Starbucks wifi if you park in front of a store and their signal is in range.
Just be aware that the iPhone has a limitation that if you get a phone call the hotspot feature will be turned off. Some Android phones will allow you to continue using the hotspot feature while you are talking, so check your phone.

 

Are you using satelite mode on the Porsche Nav?

 

Affirmative, and with your question it occurred to me that the constant photo map rendering might be a data hog. I just unchecked that option, which should help. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Checking your data usage

To check the data usage on the provided ATT SIM, go to https://myvehicle.att.com. Register, if you haven't already, and you should see something like this:

 

In my experience, the ATT site did not allow me to register my SIM during the trial period. The day the trial ended, I could register but there was no record of prior data use. Once I chose a data plan I was able to track usage from that point forward.

 

I just went to att.com/porsche as is said on the card that came with the SIM (image attached) and clicked on the link to sign up. It asked me for the ICCID of the SIM card and that was pretty much it.

The site is tracking my usage- after about 10 miles around town yesterday with the SIM inserted, I used 6.99 MB. I also found that the PCM does appear to cache some of the satellite data, since I ejected the SIM and the detail remained.

 

SIM Card Data Usage

Please forgive me if there is a thread somewhere else which deals with SIM Card and data usage. My 2017 Macan S (White, ACC, LED, Premium Pkg, Connect+) was delivered last week, following a short delay at the Port of Houston awaiting PCM unit. My question has to do with SIM Card Data usage. I have used 1.05 Gb so far, but have only travelled about 60 miles, and about 4 hours with the PCM unit 'on'. I am wondering which application or service is using so much data. Here is what I have tried to do so far to ascertain the data usage culprits:
1. Yesterday, (first usage following Delivery) here was my configuration: Google Earth selected as a Map 'Layer', Online Traffic selected, Radio One streaming internet radio. Following a two hour trip, data used was 932 Mb.
2. Today, before driving, I switched off Internet radio and used about 7 Gb. with the other items listed still 'on'. I then switched off both internet radio and the Google Earth Map layer. After a further hour, I had used another 7Mb. I have since switched off Online Traffic as a last resort, but I have not used the car since. I will report on usage when I do.

Can anyone say which applications or functions are using so much data? I can't believe internet radio requires so much bandwidth? Maybe I'm missing something?

Thanks, Gordon.

 

Was the hotspot feature enabled? Was anyone in the vehicle using a streaming video service? We had the AT&T SIM installed after taking delivery in Atlanta. The very next morning I got a 75% used message from AT&T. Turns out the kid's watching Netflix through the hotspot really chews up data... Which should come as no surprise, of course.

How has your data consumption been since your last post?

 

Google earth eats up a LOT of data. I keep it off unless I need something specific from it. Have had mine just one day shy of 3 months, used it daily, have had traffic on all the time and streaming music most days. Still not used all of the 3 GB.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Good to know, I plan to keep the Google Earth overlays inactive. I don't see much need for the picture overlays or 3D drawing styles. Yeah, they're neat looking but largely unnecessary for most driving situations.

The hotspot feature, likewise. It's all too easy for tablets and phone devices to treat any WiFi connection as not being cost-limited. They'll be stingy with a cell connection if there's one built-into the device. But they'll put no limits on a WiFi link. Stuff like firmware and app updates can really burn through bandwidth. They'll think the Porsche hotspot is the same as an unlimited home network because they have no way of telling otherwise.

 

I have run several experiments on my PCM4 Connect+ equipped '17 white/red interior Macan S. With Google and Traffic layers 'OFF' in Maps, streaming music using Radio.net on the PCM appears to use more than 300 Gb/hr, which is clearly unacceptable. Compared with my iPhone 6+ using the Apple Radio.net App, Wi Fi OFF, (LTE Data only), which used about 60 GB/hr, streaming identical station, (128 bps). I should very much appreciate it if anyone with Connect+ would check and report their data usage while streaming music using Radio.net on PCM4. I have found that Google Maps with Traffic layers in Nav are not outlandish data hogs. I have them on all the time, (except for the data experiments). Thanks!

 

I find it nearly impossible to believe your phone on a current LTE network is even capable of processing that much data an hour. How are you making these calculations?

 

I meant 60 Mb/hr. for the iPhone, 300 Mb/hr for the PVM4. Sorry!

To run Radio.net on the PCM, I first open the Porsche Connect App on the iPhone, and then connect the iPhone to the PCM Hotspot. Select Radio.net under APPs on PCM screen, tune an internet radio station. The Data used is reported by AT&T under the telephone number associated with the PCM SIM Card. This is where the 300 Mb/hr figure comes from. The data usage reported for the iPhone is obtained with WiFi off, connected to AT&T LTE network, Radio.net App on iPhone enabled. Same station tuned as selected for PCM data test.

Has anyone else seen this sort of data usage while streaming an internet radio station through Radio.net?

 

@Gaphillipson@me.com Unfortunately I can't really help you as I have a 2015 with PCM3.1 instead of your 4.0. I stream Tidal via my phone into the system instead of using the apps built into mine, so that I can get a much better quality feed, which sounds significantly better on my Burmester.


I don't worry at all about data for music as I use T-Mobile, which is quite good in my area. If T-Mobile is good in your area, you might want to consider it for their free music service access instead of the AT&T SIM. Some here have reported success on T-Mobile with PCM4 and others have not. I assume that is due to the LTE implementation in their area, so YMMV.

 

I've had my sim card and services active for 7 days. I logged on to my account at att.com/porsche last night and is says I've used 1.85GB of my 3GB trial. All I've done is enable all the map features (google earth, traffic, etc.) and added a few POIs. The car hasn't been in use for more than 10 hours. I can't get the POIs to show up unless I connect to my car wifi. Someone on this forum suggested that (having my phone on the car wifi) might be what is burning all the data, however I normally don't consume more than 2GB a month on my phone through my normal cell billing.

Any advice on how to connect to NAV/POIs without having to have my phone on the car wifi would be appreciated. The manual says that's the way to do it an it works. however it is going to consume data at these rate$$$s then it will not get used.

 

I'm pretty sure Google Earth is burning your data double-time.

 

Bluestraveler: I had a similar experience - and that is when I decided to try to isolate the data usage of individual services afforded by the PCM4/Connect+. I am not convinced that the Google Map layer or Traffic are the big data hogs, however I since I have been trying to isolate on the internet radio service, I have not determined the data rates associated with Google Maps/Earth, and I could be very wrong.

So, what I have been doing is to turn OFF Google Map Layer, Traffic Map Layer and isolating on the Radio.net App in PCM. My iPhone 6+ is using a nominal amount of data to stream a 128 bps Radio.net internet radio station when connected to the ATT LTE network, (about 60 Mb/hr). (There is a Radio.net App for the iPhone). As you know, there is another Radio.net App provided in the PCM 'Apps'. When using that PCM App, my data usage, (reported for the SIM card telephone number) is more like 300 MB/hr. I have been wondering whether just my PCM4 is using exorbitant amounts of data. I have approached Porsche who are saying that they have had no other complaints similar to mine, but are paying attention. If you would like to pursue this issue with me offline, my email address is: gaphillipson@me.com

Gordon

 

. When using that PCM App, my data usage, (reported for the SIM card telephone number) is more like 300 MB/hr.

This sure is strange.
128 kbps audio should mean 56.25 MB (that's just arithmetic, 128 Kilobits * 60 seconds * 60 minutes / 8 bits per byte = 57600 KiloBytes per second, divide by 1024 and you get the MBs), which is close enough to the 60 MB that folks are reporting (a little overhead is normal).

The 300 MB / hour figure for audio with PCM is definitely crazy. 5 times the bitrate for audio would mean this is 640 kbps audio, which is not even an established bitrate, they realistically only go up to 320 kbps.

 

Thanks RJ. Whether streaming via Bluetooth to the PCM, (WiFi OFF) or Playing the same station independently over ATT LTE network, the iPhone seems to be using the same amount of data, as one should expect. The question I have is is why should the PCM, using the Porsche installed Radio.Net App be using 5X that data as compared with the iPhone for the exact same station? I appreciate that there are several ways of listening to the a given station, in other words, there are various 'work-arounds'. But the need for one should not arise. In spite of the data usage issue, I find the PCM4 to be an outstanding Infotainment device, and either I am doing something wrong, or there is a bug in the PCM4 software/hardware.

 

When monitoring usage make sure there's nothing else using the link. As in, no tablets or phones that might try and use what they think is a 'free' WiFi link for doing updates or other content synchronizing. Simplest way to keep this from happening is to change the WiFI password on the PCM. That'll prevent anything that has a cached session from making any new connections. That and do not have any other connections like Bluetooth active. Things aren't "supposed to" use BT for anything but for testing purposes it's never a bad idea to make certain.

Once you're sure there's nothing else connecting, then retry the radio.net test.

It's certainly going to be an added challenge for infotainment systems to be 'stingy' with bandwidth. Or to at least offer configurable choices for it. Porsche, as a higher-end brand may not be considering this to be much of an issue. After all, this is not a budget vehicle you're purchasing here. However, embedded devices can be notoriously bad at managing bandwidth consumption. Made worse by "pretty features" that chew through data (aka Google Earth and 3D views). But things like gracenote metadata lookups also apply.

 

WKearney99: Good advice. During my experiments on data usage, There are no clients attached to the Porsche Hotspot, other than the iPhone itself, (when using the Porsche Connect App). It is understood that there may be other activities consuming data alongside the music streaming service. However it should be noted that these data tests were performed using the identical streaming service, (Radio.net), and I suppose it is possible that the features of the iPhone Radio.net App are not identical with those implemented in the PCM4 Radio.net App, but surely one would not expect them to be so different, to account for a 5-fold difference in data consumption. I have replicated the results in 8 or more experiments.

I should be interested to hear the experience of other owners whose '17 Macan is equipped with PCM 4 and Connect+ who have used their Radio.net App.