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Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 24 posts

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#11
My fiance has a 2GB cap and I have unlimited, she went over one month and I couldn't figure out how cause I didn't think I used that much and I stream Pandora/Rhapsody/Sirius on my phone quite often. I finally checked my usage statement and was shocked to see I average 2.5 to 3.5GB. I think my max was over 6GB one month due to streaming Netflix for a few hours.

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#13
I work from home, so it entirely depends on how often I went out that month. With latest versions of Android (at least), there is (effectively) no power penalty to not having wifi enabled permanently. I use 3G Watchdog to monitor usage. I'm on course to have used a whopping 4MB by the end of this month (I expect that will mostly have been email polling while shopping etc.); but if I'm out and about, bored and / or in need of research / maps / etc., I could easily blow that in 10 minutes. But I'd have a hard time going above 10MB a day. I simply don't use data intensive services often enough outside.

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#14
post #2

That's a big jump from 250MB to 2GB. You might want to add <500MB and <1GB .. In the UK at least, the "unlimited" cap is set at ~500MB.

I added 'Under 500MB' but I'm not sure if HN lets me reorder the poll options so its at the bottom. Seriously 500MB is considered unlimited in the UK? I think in the US a lot of 'unlimited' plans start throttling at 5GB.

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#15
I don't really think the average (or even fringe) usage today has much to do with the what the data caps are now.

The caps are put in place today, I imagine, only in order to set a precedent. Then, 5 years from now when using more then 5GB is very common they can justify the much larger charges that will follow.

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#16
Irish mobile operators(specifically 3) just began to introduce 'all you can eat', or unlimited, data plans.

As I understand it, the AUP is limited to 1TB per month - more than my residential 500GB cable cap. I know several people who tether their laptops and phones, to use it in their own homes.

Personally, I use less than 100MB mobile data a month, but I also don't use a conventional (Android, iOS) smartphone any more. I went dumb ;)

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#17

I use under 2GB per month but with so much going mobile, I can easily see myself pushing that limit soon. Cell phone carriers shouldn't be afraid of growth.

I think the fear of growth is because the growth is moving faster than their infrastructure.

Re: Poll: How much cell phone data do you use a month?

#20
I never wondered how much of my "unlimited" iPhone data plan I was using until AT&T introduced their tiered plans a year or so ago. When I at that time checked my usage history I was a little surprised to see that I was rarely using more than 200MB per month, so I actually dropped down to their $15/month plan and ended up saving some money.
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