AppleFan1

Ok guys, I know this has been discussed in various other threads, but I thought I would give it its own thread and figure out a few things about the in car WiFi. Because the internet speed was SO slow, I did not renew the MBrace Plus when the free trial expired in early July. I would sign up for it again if I knew that the internet speed has improved recently.

The past few days I experimented with playing iTunes Radio in the car while the WiFi was activated. A month or so ago when I would try this, the music would pause about every 10 seconds and it was worthless. Now, it seems to play the songs with hardly ever pausing. So, has the internet speed increased recently? I know that MTrauman indicated in another thread somewhere that he thinks Internet Radio seems to work a lot better recently. He was listening to radio stations from Germany and he was enjoying Internet Radio in his 2014 S550. What is the experience with some of you out there in recent days or weeks about this issue? Is the WiFi (internet speed) improved? If so, I would sign up for MBrace Plus once again. Thanks for any input on this subject.

screw991le

Sounds like a carrier up-grade and nothing to do with m-brace. The speed is on the wireless connection not the hardware.

AppleFan1

Yes I realize that, but I wanted to confirm if the speed has been improved.

Vik888

Who is the provider for the service?

Also, there is another thread there from a guy in Dubai who said in the ME, you get internet by hooking up a data adapter or cell phone of your choice via USB. If we could do this in the U.S., that would be awesome and you could easily hook up a 4G LTE adapter.

AppleFan1

The provider is Verizon.

I am very curious to know if the speed has increased in in recent weeks. In other words, did Verizon in cooperation with MB, upgrade the speed for the in car WiFi?
Does anyone know? If they did, then I will call MBrace and sign up for MBrace Plus.

whoover

I don't understand. If you didn't renew mBrace, how was WiFi activated? Isn't the only way to get WiFi in the US through an mBrace account?

Alishami

He is saying that he used to be a subscriber in Mbrace and his membership has ended now and He is confused whether to renew or not because as He used Mbrace Internet connection it was slow so He is asking now if the internet speed has been improved or not

AppleFan1

I did not renew MBrace Plus (free for only 3 months) which includes Internet Radio. The Wifi free trial is good for 6 months I believe. Obviously, the WiFi speed is directly related as to how well the Internet Radio will work. So, I am wondering if the speed has indeed been improved. If so, I will subscribe to MBrace Plus. I like Internet Radio. I hope that clarifies it.

whoover

I didn't realize WiFi wasn't part of mBrace Plus. Does that mean you still have the base mBrace?

The hardware is 3G. Verizon has put all of their investment in the 4G network in the last few years, but the system can't use it. 3G speed depends a lot on where you happen to be. Some locations will give you decent (100kb) speeds but nowhere will it be good (the megabit speeds that 4G delivers). But even worse, the 3G coverage can be very spotty and inconsistent. I really doubt that you'll see a significant improvement in internet speed until MB upgrades the comm adapter to 4G. Acceptable bandwidth probably is a fluke of location and loading of the nearest cell tower.

If you have a Verizon phone, put in 3G-only mode and see how your internet browsing is as you drive around. That's a pretty good proxy for what mBrace will deliver.

MTrauman

Hey Beantrader--As you stated above, yes my internet radio is working great! But I don't think the internet speed is that much faster. On the tests I did before (couple of months ago), the download speed was .12 Mbps and the upload speed was .14 Mbps. The test I did just a few minutes ago was .19Mbps and .17Mbps. So better but still pretty bad.

MTrauman

Just as a reference to my above comment about speed. I just did a test on my home cable internet connection. The speed was 8Mbps download and 3.11 Mbps upload. Lighting fast compare to the car wifi. No comparison.

nyca

The hardware is 3G, 3G is slow and dead. I imagine the 2016 will have 4G. Does MB produce any car now with 4G? I know the Audi A3 has it, so Audi will start to offer that new unit across their models.

AppleFan1

Thanks Trauman! So what changed to make the Internet Radio work better if Verizon is still providing 3G? I am curious because I also think as I mentioned above that the bluetooth connection now seems to work better when I play music from iTunes Radio on the iPhone. The only think I could figure out was that somehow the internet speed is at least a little faster. So, if indeed there a little faster internet speed so the Internet Radio will work well, then I would consider signing up for MBrace Plus.

whoover

Nothing in the mBrace-Verizon connectivity could effect your iTunes over Bluetooth. That's strictly your phone talking to iTunes Radio. It could be normal connection quality variation.

I'm still a little confused but I think you're talking about resubscribing to MB Apps, which is not the same as mBrace Plus. But they do have some package deal pricing, so it's easy to get them confused.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Tunein Radio (the internet radio that MB Apps uses) and iTunes Radio both change the quality of the stream depending on available bandwidth. If it's possible, they stream at 256 K but drop to 96 or even lower if the connection requires it. If the initial determination is wrong and they try to stream a high-quality 256k signal over a 100k connection, you'll get the interruptions you described as the signal has to constantly rebuffer. So if they had a bug on the server end that set up the handshake with COMAND incorrectly and then fixed it at the server, you'd have the experience you described. Of course, the sound quality would drop but you'd probably not even notice compared with the annoyance of constant buffering.

As long as you're in an area with solid 3G, 100kb, connectivity I'd expect a lo-quality music stream to work reasonably well. Move into an area with marginal 3G and it will die.

MB Apps is billed month to month, so you can always try it for a month or two. You don't need to pay for mBrace Plus unless you want those features (Concierge, Family Tracking and human routing assistance).

AppleFan1

Wow! This is helpful. Thanks! I am not well versed on these things. Somehow I thought there was a relationship between the WiFi speed and the buffering on iTunes Radio through bluetooth.

I have never really bothered with the MBrace apps. All I cared about was a fast enough internet speed so that Internet Radio would work well.

whoover

Just to make sure, there are three packages: mBrace, mBrace Plus and Mercedes-Benz Apps. TuneIn Internet Radio is part of Mercedes-Benz Apps, not mBrace Plus. So it's Mercedes-Benz Apps that you would renew for Internet Radio, not mBrace Plus. Small point.

http://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalA...0814_KH_v2.pdf

AppleFan1

Say, whoover, on second thought I've been using the in car WiFi lately to play iTunes Radio. Wouldn't that use the speed available with the WiFi in the car? Recently I've had basically no buffering and that's why I brought this issue up again. Wouldn't that suggest that the speed has been improved?

TomS

One minor point is if you have a decent data plan on a smartphone, then TuneIn on that device streaming to the car works too. I have unlimited ATT for my iPhone so I just stream stuff all the time. I love streaming the audio from a ballgame with the MLB app. We listening to the Rays games while on the road and it really passes the time.

I only add this in case anyone is like me regarding mbrace. I just called MBRACE and cancelled my PLUS and Apps as I do not use them since them have not worked well for me. I kept the basic mbrace so I get the crash protection, alarm notification and Send2Benz.

whoover

I'm still confused about what you have enabled, I'm afraid. I assumed that, like TomS, you were using iTunes Radio on your phone and streaming it via Bluetooth to COMAND. I think you implied that you were in an earlier post.

I've seen references to the WiFi hot spot working only with mBrace MB Apps and other reference to using you phone's data plan, I think with a Bluetooth connection. It sounds like your car supports the latter. Can you confirm it? If so, you're still using your phone's 4G connection to stream the iTunes Radio, and then Bluetooth to COMAND. It's really the same thing that TomS is talking about except that the integration with COMAND is a little more elegant than audio streaming from the phone to COMAND via Bluetooth (which is what I took TomS to be using).

I assume your phone is involved in the iTunes Radio streaming. If it's not, please explain in more detail what you're doing.

AppleFan1

Hopefully, this will clarify it once and for all. As of a couple months ago, when I activated the WiFi and used IT on my iPhone to play iTunes Radio, it was horrible as it would buffer continuously. But when I would use the AT&T data plan with 4G LTE connection (I don't have an unlimited data plan with AT&T but only 2 gigs per month) and NOT the car's WiFi on my phone and played songs from iTunes and went through bluetooth connection in the car, it would work flawlessly. So, after experimenting for a couple weeks using the car's WiFi on my phone, I said the heck with this. It's horrible. So, I was indeed using the AT&T data plan. Recently, I tried the car WiFi route again to play songs from iTunes Radio and it has been working very well. I think the free trial for WiFi is good for 6 months after I took delivery of the car and this runs out in early October. The Tunein Radio free trial ran out in early July so I have no way of experimenting with that to see if it has improved as Trauman states.

I just need some verification if the internet speed through the car WiFi has gotten a little faster in order for me to sign up for Tunein Radio again. It was pretty bad and that's why I did not renew it. I'm thinking that something has changed for the better in recent weeks since I can now play songs using the car's WiFi on my iPhone and it works real well.

I'm out of breath, but I sure hope this clarifies everything.

whoover

The only part that doesn't make sense, although the plans might have changed, is that you say your TuneIn ran out but "WiFi" is still active. My understanding is that they are both part of the same paid feature: Mercedes-Benz Apps. In other words, if you don't have TuneIn you shouldn't have an internet connection via "WiFi."

So one of two things is going on. They changed the way they deliver internet and you in fact are using mBrace to get to iTunes Radio even though you can't get to TuneIn. I don't understand how this could be, but things do change.

The other possibility is that you're really using your phone's data plan through the Bluetooth pairing without realizing it. It would be 4G and explain why it works so well. To test it, keep the phone far enough from the car so it won't pair and see if you can get to iTunes Radio.

AppleFan1

All I know is that when I try to get TuneIn Radio a message comes up and says, "TuneIn Radio is not available......" and that message coincided with the date (around July 2) when it was supposed to be turned off. I definitely still have WiFi since I see the WiFi symbol on the iPhone and on the phone's settings it says connected to Mercedes......So perhaps they forgot to shut me off from the WiFi. I have no idea. But in any case, it appears that something with the connection speed has improved since it no longer buffers when I play iTunes Radio in the car through bluetooth and the Car's WiFi.

whoover

What do you do precisely to play iTunes Radio in the car? What interface do you use? Something in COMAND or something on the phone? What exactly?

The phone connecting to your cars hotspot (router) doesn't necessarily mean that it's getting an internet connection from that hotspot. Don't forget the WiFi proper is local to the car. The icon on the phone just means it's connected to the hotspot, not that the hotspot is providing internet connectivity. It might be, but I'm still skeptical. That's why I'd like to know exactly how you bring up iTunes Radio before I can advise on your internet connection.

AppleFan1

I just touch the "Media" button on the command area and then the system connects the device (iPhone in this case) through bluetooth and it starts playing streaming music from the music stations I had selected on iTunes Radio. Without any doubt at all, there use to be a big difference with and without connection to WiFi. It was so bad in the past that I would deactivate the WiFi in the car so that I could just stream the music through the At&T data plan and 4G LTE connection. But recently, I do not need to deactivate the WiFi since it works good enough. Is this just a coincidence? I don't think so.

Btw, the phone has to be getting connection through the car's WiFi because when I try to go to a couple of different websites on the phone while I'm sitting in the car, it is quite slow as opposed to the normal 4G LTE it normally uses when it is very fast. But evidently, the WiFI is now just fast enough to be able to stream the music from iTunes Radio quite well as opposed to the past.

Alishami

I think you weren't using the car Wi-Fi cause the iPhone has a feature that makes the phone chose the most stable connection and switch between Cellular Data and Wi-Fi,so perhaps your Phone was using its Data Plan while it's connected to your Car Wi-Fi.

By the way I have tried the tethering internet connection from my iPhone to the car as I mentioned in some posts but I'm still getting a slow connection that doesn't exceed 500Kbps,Which I guess is related to bluetooth low transfer rate.

Then I tried the USB tethering but no luck again with an Android phone and iPhone.