So you have yourself an Android headunit. Maybe you chose one of the more featured headunits that includes a SIM car adaptor for an easy way to add reliable data. Or you want to free your phone and its host spot from serving the head unit and choose a MiFi or USB dongle.
These are great choices to provide data to the Android headunit as it means you don’t need to set up a hot spot on your phone each time you need to access the internet.
T-Mobile SIM
T Mobile SIM cards offer good data packages but can be challenging to set up if they don’t work straight out of the box.
APN
One of the standard and crucial missing settings for T-Mobile is the APN. The three letters APN are short for Access Point Name. The SIM card uses the APN to connect to the ISP (t-mobile). Without the correct APN setting, no internet will be available to the head unit. Checking the APN setting is correct when working with a T-Mobile SIM is a good start if there is a signal but no internet.
The T-Moble APN setting
Fast.t-mobile.com
(for LTE devices)
but if that doesn’t work, try
epc.tmobile.com
(for non-LTE devices)
Other Settings for T-Mobile
The rest of the settings need to be blank, somewhat unexpected; blank passwords are unusual, but because your T-Mobile SIM is unique, there is no need for different passwords. This makes it easier for us and makes the APN setting the key to unlocking the internet connection from a SIM card.
- Proxy: <Not set>
- Port: <Not set>
- Username: <Not set>
- Password: <Not set>
- Server: <Not set>
- MCC: 310
- MNC: 260
- Authentication Type: <Not set>
The data should start flowing with the APN setting correctly entered for your T-Mobile SIM.
