MG4 and 4G Data

[Funks]

I've had my MG4 for a few months now, but only recently realised that the car has a 4G data connection.
I'd like to know how this works.
Is it like my own mobile phone? So does the car have a phone number, a network provider, and who is paying for the data used by the car?

My worry is this, in the future, will this facility of the car become redundant?
To keep the feature will I have to start paying for the data service? (Nothing was mentioned when I bought the vehicle, but then again I didn't know and didn't ask ) And how dependant on this 4G connection is the functioning of the vehicle?
And finally, does this mean the car can be constantly tracked and even worse, hacked by bad people with evil intentions?

Yes, I'm a technophobe and I worry about how quickly technology changes and how quickly it becomes outdated and redundant.
Any explanations, comments, suggestions or recommendations will be welcomed.

 

[ReintjeWA]

I believe Europe is the same as Australia in that MG uses the Vodafone network. (Here in Australia they've made a recent deal with Optus to share networks so yay for us).

As far as I know there are no data limits, no costs, and no known expiry date. But of course at some point MG will have to renew it's service contract with Vodafone I imagine.

Some people have reported data limits or limits on how long the service will be free of charge, but I don't recall anybody reporting that they've been billed for anything yet.

The car can be tracked/located by GPS via the phone app, so I doubt anybody will bother using cell phone towers as they are probably less accurate. Question for the SE drivers, your cars would still have GPS location capability, despite not having in built navigation right? For the app. (and I think someone managed to install MG navigation on their SE by using Trophy software or something like that.)

 

[Everest]

And finally, does this mean the car can be constantly tracked and even worse, hacked by bad people with evil intentions?

My concerns too - hence see also my thread here...

MG Cyberattack concerns

Does anyone know on here what remote control the Chinese have over MG4's if you don't sign up for the iSmart connectivity option? I am guessing that the car may still send data to the Chinese (location, charging patterns etc.), but presumably not identified with an individual under GDPR...

www.mgevs.com

 

[AlC]

Yes, my excite 51 has the GPS location (find my car) feature in the app. So definitely the same GPS hardware on board as the Essence models, just no onboard maps. Which is fine for me, I prefer Android auto.

 

[ReintjeWA]

Yes, my excite 51 has the GPS location (find my car) feature in the app. So definitely the same GPS hardware on board as the Essence models, just no onboard maps. Which is fine for me, I prefer Android auto.

It’s a bit silly though isn’t it? Surely the hardware would be the expensive part of putting navigation in a car? Especially if you are making maps for the Trophy, if you give them to the SE you can spread out the cost even more…

I’m with you though, I never use the on board navigation.

 

[Ian Key]

It's not worth using. In the UK MG have limited it to1GB per month which includes data for the weather tile.

If an evil empire was going to hack into cars and control them they would probably go for the Teslas which have self driving capabilities and working OTA updates.

If you're worried about the car being tracked then you should also worry about your mobile phone being tracked too as even if location is turned off it can be tracked by the phone masts.

 

[Funks]

I'm not too worried about being tracked or digitately followed, I'm wondering how reliant the vehicle is on the 4G link, and how secure the link is.
I'm probably making a mountain out of a mole hill, of all this.

Incidently, I've been told that both my Ohme home charger and my new smart electric meter both use the 4G network to send data back. I just hope the 4G network never becomes obsolete!

 

[T1 Terry]

When the 3G was shut down a few weeks back, a lot of the security gates that required your number to be registered with the gate control so you could ring it to open, they just stopped working ..... those a bit full of themselves with their own security gates to their property, were either trapped inside or out of their own place .... it was a great laugh topic at the local for a few days. The local marina had to manually open the gate and leave it open, till a tech could come out and install a 4G device .... proactive maintenance at its best

I doubt the 4G does much of the control of the vehicle, we have big black spot areas over this way with all 3 of our carriers and the multitude of the "budget priced" providers that still have to use one of the 3 providers.

If it did it via satellite, by the time it up loaded and then sent the reply, the car would be blocks if not kms away, so it probably only uses the 4G for those trick things like turning the heating or cooling on via the phone

T1 Terry

 

[Muffler]

Incidently, I've been told that both my Ohme home charger and my new smart electric meter both use the 4G network to send data back. I just hope the 4G network never becomes obsolete!

I have a 7 yr old Chargemaster wall unit that I think used 2G to upload usage data and subsequently lost that functionality within 2-3 yrs as support was dropped!

 

[ReintjeWA]

3G was about 20 years old, and 4G is about 14 years old now, so I suppose it would be interesting to know if 5G could theoretically be supported by the car, although I guess if it could, then it would where available

 

[siteguru]

As the car uses an eSIM rather than a physical SIM then it'll depend on the hardware in the car ... I don't know if the MG4 simply uses a 4G chip.

 

[AlC]

I also don't think there's ever going to be quite the same imperative to shutdown 4G as there was with 3G. 4G and 5G networks can coexist and share the same frequency ranges in a way that 3G could not.

From what I've read 4G will be hanging around for at least 10 years, which is probably beyond the time any of us intend to own our cars for.

Regardless, the MG4 would remain a perfectly capable car without connectivity. The remote control and find my car stuff is nice to have but not essential.

If you were supremely paranoid about being tracked, or the car being remotely hacked or disabled you could probably pull the antenna connection. However if that's keeping you awake at night you might be overestimating your importance in the scheme of China's geopolitical ambitions.

A more realistic concern to have might be that there are inadvertent security vulnerabilities in that could be exploited against the public facing interface of the car, but with CGNAT used by most telcos, being able to send an unsolicited packet to the car from another device seems unlikely.

I think the main thing that I worry about is how secure SAICS servers are. They don't implement MFA, and they have silly restrictions on the characters you can use in your password which speak to me of the passwords being stored in an insecure fashion.

 

[grange]

I believe Europe is the same as Australia in that MG uses the Vodafone network. (Here in Australia they've made a recent deal with Optus to share networks so yay for us).

The eSIM also uses the Telstra network when roaming….