Contributor
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1 Message
First smartphone, how much data do I need?
I have never had a smartphone or a phone with a service plan, but I plan on getting an iPhone soon. However, I am unsure about how much data I am going to use. I am a working college student and I will be paying for it by myself, so I'm trying to be economical, but I also want to make sure that I don't get too little.
I expect to be using my phone on wi-fi most of the time and for most social media, recreation, etc. As I understand, AT&T's plan gives you however many GBs of data that you pay for, and unlimited talk/text (correct me if I'm wrong).
I am unsure how much data I will use so I don't know how much I should get in my plan, since I'm not terribly needy. I want to know how other people decided on their data plans.
o00bubbles00o
Former Employee
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107 Messages
10 years ago
If you aren't going to do a lot of streaming on the network with pandora, netflix, etc. I would say 1 or 2 gb is a pretty safe bet, especially if you keep your cellular off when you are on wifi. 2 gb has a more reasonable overage than the 1 gb plan. 2 gb w.o a contract is only 65$. It's 80$ w/ a contract. The one GB plan is 65 w/ a contract and w.o a contract it is only 50$, but the overage is 20$ for 500mb as opposed to 15$/1gb with the 2 gb plan.
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Man_of_Steel
Scholar
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72 Messages
10 years ago
I used this site from AT&T and it gave me a very reasonable estimate of what I should expect based on my usage. If you're not sure how much data, you can always go with the higher option and adjust once you have a couple of months worth of usage. 🙂
http://www.att.com/att/datacalculator/#fbid=NSEWewV8ysg
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Anonymous
New Member
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25.7K Messages
10 years ago
If you look at the cost for the data plans, 2 GB is $40, 4 GB is $70. (as of this writing). The overage on the 2 GB plan is $15 for an additional 1 GB. So if you go with 2 GB, you could burn up to 4 GB and it wouldn't cost any more than if you were already on the 4 GB plan.
Be sure you have your iPhone (or your App Store, not sure how it works with iStuff) set to update over WiFi only. Check you data usage every couple of days to see how much you are using, and that will help you get a feel for what you need. Again, not sure how iPhonies do it, but on Android, I dial 3282 (DATA) and get a text message telling me how much data I have used.
Keep in mind, though, that the data usage reported sometimes lags behind the actual usage, by days, and if you are getting close to your data limit towards the end of the billing period, you may have already gone over. Give yourself about a 20% margin of error on the data usage that AT&T reports. If dialing DATA doesn't work, you can always check your account online.
Good Luck!
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Anonymous
New Member
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25.7K Messages
10 years ago
When I used my Nokia Lumia 520 Windows Phone on my old GoPhone plan I used the 500 MB plan (which I believe has changed) and never went over the allotment.
We now have an iPhone 5S (me) and an iPhone 4 (wife). We initially signed up for the 2 GB per month Mobile Share plan but have now dropped it to 1 MB per month effective in six days. We use WiFi at home, at friends/family houses and at other open/free wireless hotspots around town. Right now we have only used 500 MB of our 2 GB allotment with less than a week to go in the billing period.
So it depends on your useage and use of WiFi versus cellular data. Using WiFi as much as possible will save you $$$$ by allowing you to use a smaller cellular data plan.
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hme83
Master
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5.9K Messages
10 years ago
As has already been stated above, I would recommend getting the 2GB plan initially, just to be on the safe side. You can move down after you've used the phone a bit if your usage trend shows you don't need more than the 1GB plan. I know I always use more data right after I've gotten a new phone - playing around with it and seeing what all it can do. 🙂 But then the novelty wears off, and I tend to use less data after a month or so.
I rarely exceed 1 GB and I use cellular data on my phone all day long, every day - granted, I don't do tons of browsing from the phone and so my data use is mostly for e-mail. But most months I don't even get very close to using 1 GB on my Nokia 520. I rarely use WiFi for anything other than downloading software updates (only when WiFi is required for the download), and then I immediately turn WiFi back off (since it's a battery hog).
Everyone's usage pattern is different and your's will likely change over time as well. So enjoy your new phone and getting to know it! 🙂
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