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The WiFi Hotspot speed is absolutely horrible

blue_canyon21
New Contributor II

I get that nowhere on the site or in any promotional material does it say that the hotspot speeds are meant to be high speeds. But, if I'm paying $25/month for it, it should be better than .5Mbps.

I can't even download a 100kb Excel file let alone stream anything from any streaming platform. Even Pandora has trouble streaming audio on the lowest quality setting.

I've called support and they have "reset" things and said, "It should be better now. If not, give it a few days." Well, it's been a few days and 3 more calls to support and guess what... WiFi still sucks.

This is my last resort to get GM/OnStar to do anything about this. Obviously, I'm not the only one with this issue.

29 REPLIES 29

pelaras04
New Contributor

We have a 2017 Buick LaCrosse and a 2020 GMC Terrrain. The 2017 Buick developed slow WiFi in areas in 2021 before being all the time. Sadly it wasn’t my top 1000 things to deal with. I did mention it to the service team though every time I went in for an oil changes or other service. They noted nothing wrong with the hardware. Fast forward to Easter Weekend 2023. We’re traveling but I have a few free moments, so I start troubleshooting the speeds to see what they are. Oh my. Horrid doesn’t cover it. Criminal is closer. Under 1mbps most of the time. Top speed after days of working on it with OnStar was 3mbps but then it’d revert down to >1 again. And 3mbps wasn’t enough for our iPhones to be able to run music, navigation or other apps. My favorite was when they said AT&T was throttling the speed, and I’d need to call them but offered no direct line into AT&T for that conversation to be had.
Meanwhile, we get home, and I start comparing speeds to the Terrain and a separate hotspot I had. Yah. Done.  I’d already upgraded our cellphones to unlimited as it was so unreliable. 
Talked it over with my husband. We canceled OnStar on both vehicles. All of it. No one wants to address the issue or offer a real solution. Hell if they’d said it looks like a new WiFi card/part was needed and it fixed it… even if I had to pay for it, would have been preferred vs “ehhh, sorry to hear that.”  We’re over GM products. Because like many others — the whole reason we’ve continued to buy GM products was we liked OnStar and the connectivity. 

Justin2024
New Contributor

I had the data plan on my 2016 Silverado until 2019.  It was actually decent.  I have a brand new 2024,.and with absolute max indicated signal from OnStar my data sucks.  We are talking so bad that eventually the radio decides it was willing to tether to my phone because the OnStar was so bad it couldn't work.

My phone refuses to even acknowledge Internet from the hotspot most of the time, but when I did a speed test is was only 25kbps YES less than 1/2 the speed of a dialup modem.  Did I mention this is within a 10 foot circle of where I used to get 20 down 5 up back in 2019?

We appreciate you bringing this experience to our attention, Justin. If you need an additional layer of assistance regarding your in-vehicle data, kindly email us at socialmedia@gm.com with ATTN: OnStar Community/Justin2024 in the subject headline. Our team is here to help to the best of our abilities. 

 

John62
New Contributor II

Here's my annual update. Last month, I decided to give OnStar technical support another chance. The first person I spoke with informed me that I had to take the car to the dealership to have the Hot Spot turned on! What the heck... the dealership has already said the system works and I do get email in the background.  Obviously, that call went nowhere.  I decided, a week later, to try one more time.  The person I talked to could not access my system when she tried to send a reset command.  She did some research and finally got access to my system and did some stuff.  (Who knows what they do when they put you on hold). She opened a case and said she added a bunch of notes about the issues and the steps she had to take.  I haven't had any follow up on the case; however,  I can now get maybe 5 meg download if I park under an AT&T tower.  I'm jealous that you used to have 20 meg!! I'm convinced there is bad hardware in the field and neither OnStar nor the dealership knows how to identify it or replace it. Every other issue I had with my car, the dealership just replaced the part.  OnStar hotspot they think it works if you can connect to the hotspot and don't do any further diagnostics. Maybe it is because they have no way to replace the hardware. Very sad!

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, John. Our team would like to take a further look into your case details and request contact on your behalf. So we may best assist, send us an email with more information to socialmedia@gm.com with ATTN: OnStar Community/John62 in the subject headline moving forward. We hope to hear from you soon. 

guitargain
New Contributor

try to keep this short and to the point.  I bought a 2017 Silverado in 2019 and activated the onboard wifi.  It worked decent for a time and then was slow like others here have complained.  I went round and round with Onstar and AT&T for almost 6 months about it.  Onstar would say it was AT&T and AT&T would say it was Onstar.  EVERYTIME I would call Onstar they would have me do THE EXACT SAME THING I HAD DONE MANY MANY TIMES, turn off the truck open the door and restart, blah, blah, blah. I was finally told by Onstar that the telematics module was bad.  Went to the dealer and paid almost $700 to have it replaced, and guess what? It still sucked.  Traded the Truck on another one and kept it for a couple years and didn't ever use the onboard wifi because of the crappy experience I had with the previous truck.  I bought a 2021 Silverado about a year and couple months ago and thought I would give it another try.  It started out working okay and yesterday I happened to be in an area where my T-mobile cell phone had good signal, and the onboard AT&T/Onstar had 4 bars as well.  Did a couple speed tests using the phone disconnected from the onboard wifi and got a little over 1100 mbps, or 1.1 gigabits per second. I realize 4g LTE probably won't go gigabit speeds but 5 mbps with 4 bars is unaceptable.

 Connected back to the onboard wifi and it maybe was around 5 mbps and upload was less than 1 mbps.  So I called today and had it turned off and they will never have to worry about me paying for it again.  Customer service on this issue is absolutely maddening and horrid and I NEVER got anything resolved both times just the same old script they go by to tell you to turn it off turn it on blah blah blah.

This certainly is not the experience that we hope for. Our team would like to learn more information on your in-vehicle 4G LTE WI-FI Hotspot concerns. Please send us an email at socialmedia@gm.com with ATTN: OnStar Community/guitargain in the subject headline moving forward. We hope to hear from you soon. 

MarChar
New Contributor

I've read through the 3 pages of comments on this and all I can say is I agree with all of the NEGATIVE comments.  The in car wifi doesn't work - OnStar doesn't have any fix for it and the dealership just says it's not their problem.  I've talked to OnStar at least SEVEN times - for anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour.  All I have ever gotten was the same comments I've read on here.  We've escalated your problem and you should hear from someone and I never have.  Or we refreshed your system and it should be better in a few days.  It's all hot air.  I have an iPhone 13 Pro with AT&T and my phone can always stream at least 10 times as fast not on wifi.  Most of the time if my phone is connected to the wifi in my car - it has a hard time getting text messages and phone calls.  If I try to open an app - it takes FOREVER unless I turn off the wifi,  My Wave GPS doesn't even work if it's connected to wifi.  The WiFI is WORTHLESS!!   The down side is if I get rid if the wifi half the connected service won't work at all anymore.  So I'm with others on this thread - I'm just going to look for something else other than a GM car next.  I have a Buick LaCross 2017.  So the time is approaching to look for something new.  I feel pretty confident in this - by the time I have a new vehicle - This thread will still be going and there still won't be a fix for the problem 

WarbyParkrsPimp
New Contributor II

 

In reesponse to 2017Malibu2....that is nonsense.  You sound like one of the Onstar "advisors" with a more lengthy bit of nothing to say or do to help the situation.  That would all be a giant waste of time and if your such a techie you would know that.  smh
 

If you need an additional layer of assistance regarding your case with our internal Technical Team, we can certainly take a further look into things on our end. If you continue to have trouble, kindly email socialmedia@gm.com with ATTN: OnStar Community/MarChar in the subject headline.