Hi all, I have been on this forum previously back when i bought my wife a new 2016 A6 and saw several threads regarding buying a sim card for data. Well i just bought my son a preowned 2016 A3 that seems to have 3g. I recall seeing something about buying a prepaid sim card to get the data (google maps and MMI) working. I cannot find the thread. If you can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.

I have been paying Audi connect for my wifes connection but cant see paying that fee for a 16 year old boy.

 

I know this is kinda late, but what I did is pop-in a FreedomPop SIM card. FreedomPop is a "Free" cell carrier. They have a basic plan with like 500MB data per month. A SIM card will cost you a couple bucks and that's all. You can't really use things like the Google Earth and stuff because it'll eat up those 500MB in no-time, but it works great for everything else. When you sign-up for FreedomPop, just be careful because they'll try to up-sell you every which way they can on one of their paid plans, ignore it all.

Anyway, once you do that, you've gotta change the APN settings in the MMI and you should be good to go. I forget what the settings in mine were changed to, but I can look at it in the morning.

 

thank you!

 

What you're gonna want to do is order the FreedomPop SIM card and when you get it, you're going to want to change the APN setting in the car to "fp.com.attz" (no quotes). It's in the Telephone settings of the MMI.

See this guide for how to do it

Here's the MMI Manual

You're not tied to FreedomPop either. If you find a data-only SIM that works better for you that's compatible with ATT/T-Mobile, then by all means. I just don't know what the APN settings would be for those. You'd have to call the carrier.

 

Lespaul,
thank you for the info! Im going to try it, we actually got a US mobile sim working today but i will compare rates. May I ask why you would not use google maps? Does just having the NAV on eat up data? sorry im not in the "Know" about this. My wife has an A6 but she doesnt even want the data my son drives the A3 and wants it. I'm just the poor working guy driving a 2019 GMC Sierra and dont have these problems. HAHA

Were on Verizon I sure wish i could get one of those sim cards to work. THanks Again.

 

Verizon won't work as it uses CDMA while ATT & T-Mobile use GSM. FreedomPop piggybacks off of AT&T so that's why it works.

I just don't use the satellite map overlay because it chews through a lot of data real fast and I'm using the free FreedomPop plan (which doesn't have a lot of data. By all means, use a different provider with more data if you need that, but it'll cost you some extra dollars. I don't need the satellite overlay (and in-fact, I'm going to install RS-NAV in a couple months so I can have the modern features of Android Auto and be done with the lousy Audi Connect, which I found a little lackluster when I bought the car) so I'd rather not chew though the data. RS-NAV lets me use Android Auto (or Carplay if Apple) lets me interface with my car better, . In my opinion it's the better option going forward into the 2020's. Audi Connect, at least on the 2013-2016 A3's is kind of rudimentary. So I'll use the FreedomPop SIM for the few useful features Audi Connect offers (unfortunately it seems like the 2015 year (or any A3's even in 2020) don't support remote-unlocking from the myAudi app, for instance.