The present invention provides a method of operating a vehicle telematics device as a communication gateway. The method includes detecting a wireless access point with a vehicle telematics device, establishing a communication gateway between the detected wireless access point and a service provider utilizing the vehicle telematics device, and communicating data between the wireless access point and the service provider via the communication gateway. The step of detecting the wireless access point may include transmitting a polling message from the telematics device and receiving a response, generated by the wireless access point, to the polling message. The step of establishing the communication gateway between the detected wireless access point and the service provider may include establishing communication between the communication gateway and the detected wireless access point utilizing a first communication protocol, and establishing communication between the communication gateway and the service provider utilizing a second communication protocol.