[russellw]

Back when FoA first offered it, the Suna TMS they adopted for the FG series in 2008 was supposed to be a subscription model after the first 12 months but in the end they didn't bother with the subscription. It was a bit limited for coverage back then with only Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Adelaide, and Perth but these days they claim 90% 'traffic' coverage but that's still only the 3 Eastern seaboard highways plus a few major regionals like Geelong, Bendigo, Wollongong, Sunshine Coast and Darwin.

Frankly, there's not a lot of value subscribing outside of those areas. I've kept my Sensis mapping up to date as it gets updated at each dealer service and we've got a Garmin in the van that comes with lifetime updates and I can't think of any other 'feature' I'd be willing to pay for.

It will, however, become the norm as the manufacturers keep building more stuff into base models to meet consumer demand and match the Chinese in a repeat of what happened here in the very late 60's when the Japanese started selling cars here with things like carpet and radios as standard when they were (quite expensive) options from the big 3 excep0t in their premium (read more profitable) models.