You don’t pay for it and there is no sim card but yet somehow you see your car icon move on a map?
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GPS location service is free because it is a satelite broadcast signal and the satellites are government funded, however most cars nowaday DO have data capabilities for map/traffic/software download.
It’s called Internet-of-things connectivity. Your car nav computer actually has a 3G/4G/5G module built-in, with a sim card that has a special service plan activated. Car manufacturers made a deal with carriers to heavily discount these data plans with several restrictions:
* The data speed is heavily limited,
* Only connects to specific servers for nav/music,
* Low priorty in access requests,
* Sometimes nav computer IMEI and SIM ICCID/IMSI/data plan is paired and authorized service procedures starting from dealer/workshop is required to change pairing.
These rules prevents people from taking the SIM out of totalled cars and sell it as free internet forever cards. This doesn’t hurt the carrier’s business so they sold the data plans to car manufacturers VERY cheap. They are either paid upfront by including the cost in the price of the car, or the manufacturer pay a package deal annually as server/network costs to run their public web services.
Some manufacturers are cheaping out even this deal by saying these plans are only free for the first few years, usually lined up with car warranty. After it runs out, car owners have to pay for it monthly.
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