For anyone with the My Ford Touch in their Explorer, I have a question. Other than the Gee-Whiz Geek Factor (look – I'm a rolling access point!) has anyone found a practical use for the Wi-Fi features in their vehicle?

I mean, if you have a smart phone that has internet access and you’re paying for tethering then the phone probably can act as a hot spot.
As far as using a USB mobile broadband device for internet connectivity, well you need to configure it on your laptop first, and then bury it inside the center console where it will have just great reception, and at least in my area, these things are terribly expensive both for the hardware and for the service and no carrier – at least not AT&T nor Verizon will guarantee that it will work in this application since you can’t access the device from the hardware its connected to. You could buy another Smartphone with a big data plan cheaper.

As far as connecting to a hot spot (McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.) you’re out of luck. These hotspots require that you click on an “I Agree” button on their connection page before they allow you to connect. Since My Ford Touch never implemented a browser function - which they bragged about having in their 2011 press releases, there’s no way to “Agree” therefore there’s no way to connect. Besides, wouldn’t it just be easier to connect your Smartphone, iPad or whatever directly? I’ve found when sitting in a strip mall parking lot that my Blackberry can “see” twice as many wireless networks as my Explorer, and can connect to the open ones.

Ah. Then the manual goes on to claim that the in-car hotspot allows users to share files. Ford engineers ever hear of an ad-hoc network? When was the last time you had a car full of laptop toting people sharing files?

I admit that I might be missing something here, but really, isn’t this just another “feature” in search of a purpose?

 

iT WAS MY UNDERSTANDING WHEN THE LAST RELEASE said wi-fi, etc...
that although it shows it, you couldn't utilize it - I got connected to my home wifi, but that's it, couldn't do anything with it....

so I chalked it up to the rest of the MFT failures

 

It's worthless as a feature because as you stated, phones already have hotspots and most everyone has service on their device. I don't know what they were thinking.

 

Well, I'm just guessing but if you read Ford's press releases from 2010 / 2011 they indicate that the system was going to have a web browser built in. So I guess their hardware engineers went ahead and built in the support but they probably couldn't work out a deal with Microsoft or decided that web browsing while cruising down the road wasn't such a good idea (more likely the former). Ten years ago it was 'we have more cup holders than the other guy" now it seems to be "we have more useless software than the other guy".

 

I have a use case, but it depends on what this costs per month. I have an older sync radio so I don't have the option... What carrier do they use?

Anyways, here is my use case. I have kids and they have iPads, Ipod Touchs, laptops, etc... They all can use internet and the kids are happier with it. They end up taking my phone from me or wanting me to make it a hot spot. My phone can't charge fast enough even plugged in to keep up with the power drain. In addition, an antenna located on top of the vehicle your connection has to be better.

I have done without this since I was born, so it isn't like I can't live without it. But since we generally buy fairly loaded vehicles it would be nice to have it. We do enjoy our OnStar services on our GM vehicles, so it makes sense that Ford wants to stay competitive - and OnStar is offering in vehicle WiFi now too. (And 4G LTE Service)

 

I'm in the same boat as you, Dakster— my daughter loves her wi-fi -only iPad— and in addition, both my wife and I each own our own businesses and there are some backend operations that can only be done using our laptops (as opposed to a cellular-connected iPad or iPhone).

Both of our phones are "grandfathered" into AT&T's unlimited data plans and adding tethering to either of those devices would kick them out of their grandfathered status, so what I did was to add tethering to one of our cellular-enabled iPads.

Now I can just turn on the mobile hotspot on the iPad and leave it plugged in and tucked away in the center console. My wife can do her thing with her laptop when she needs to and my daughter can play games on her iPad in the back seat.

I can even connect the My Touch to the signal which, in turn, allows even more connections (albeit at an increasingly slower data rate) should we get to a campsite or something and have the need to let friends jack into our network for whatever reason.

Bumping up to a plan that allowed for tethering devices came to an extra $20/mo but that was less expensive than buying a dedicated mobile hotspot device (paying for the hardware and then paying an additional $50/mo for another data plan).