The lojack thread got me thinking about bmwassist after one year. Substantially, it is a cell phone. I have known for a long time, and taken advantage of a little known feature of cell phones (it may be some form of law) where (in the US), it is possible to place an emergency (911) cell phone call from any cell phone. This is interesting because the phone need not be a connected phone with a service nor must it have a phone number of its own (since it is not in a service). I have carried around a cell phone (years ago) bought at a garage sale for $2 just for this purpose. When it is turned on, some generic American service comes on and allows you to place a call after paying with a credit card in advance.
The question I am posing is: would the bmwassist phone be usable at least in this restrictive way (911 and per call fee) after turning it off after 1 year service?
Anybody out there familiar with the cell phone technology and laws? Differences in other countries? Basically the phone should still serve as an emergency phone after bmw assist is disabled?
Is my description of cell phone use only true for analog (very old) systems and never for those in the e60?

 

I believe for those who never had their BMW Assist activated, the SOS button would just dial 911 and this was a problem according to them. So I'd imagine if you cancel BMW Assist it should continue to dial 911. Like you said it's just a cell phone, but who knows what BMWNA will think up next. We'll find out in a few months as some early owners come up for renewal.

Anyone here get their car in September or October 2003?

 

is BMW assist free for a year? even in the UK?

 

I don't know about UK.
In Germany it has been free for the first year of use, but beginning MY2005 it's free for the first 6 months...

 

No, there is no BMW Assist available in the UK yet.