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How much data do you use on an average a month?

S

stanw

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 29, 2007
842
5
I'm trying to decide whether to stick with VZW and my unlimited data plan, or switch to an ATT family plan with unlimited data. The VZW unlimited plan is much better from what I understand. So far I do not average much data usage, though that is with my small screen 4S and 3G connection. I'm thinking of getting the large screen Note2 and LTE speed.

Not sure if I will go over even 2GB a month with LTE. Just curious to hear what you think and how much data you use on an average month.

Thanks.
 
Just depends on what you do with the phone. For example, I use tapatalk and Facebook a lot. I also send and receive a lot of emails with pics and pdf's plus a lot of pics via iMessage. And since I got my iPhone in January I've only sent 1.7 gb of data and received 6.8 gb.

If you stream a lot of videos with Netflix, hbo go, etc especially on LTE your usage will be significantly higher. I have an LTE tablet and its was not that difficult to use up my 3 gb data plan on it. I would have to turn of LTE if I planned on watch a lot of movies.
 
How did you determine how much data you have used since January?

I just checked under my 4S Cellular usage and it indicates 579MB Sent and 1.3GB received. Is this the amount of data I have used on my iPhone since I got it?

Thanks.
 
Most of the time, I am under 1GB per month. Only occasionally do I go over 1GB and that is if I am streaming some sports even or doing something unusual. Last month, I had to do an OS update on another phone and use my phones WiFi hotspot to do it. (Security policies with my work network prevented the OS update.) I have never gone over 2GB.
 
Stuntman06 said:
Most of the time, I am under 1GB per month. Only occasionally do I go over 1GB and that is if I am streaming some sports even or doing something unusual. Last month, I had to do an OS update on another phone and use my phones WiFi hotspot to do it. (Security policies with my work network prevented the OS update.) I have never gone over 2GB.
Click to expand...

Which phone are you using? Does it have LTE?
 
I get 500MB per month on my plan and I'm always under that - there's usually wifi nearly everywhere I go, so I only use 3G for brief periods at the time, and only for light weight tasks like checking emails or quickly looking up information online.
 
I tether extensively so I use quite a bit of data on Three UK. Numbers below since December last year. :D

Figure is megabytes
November: 141309
October: 58450
September: 86152
August: 101384
July: 123954
June: 47014
May: 69229
April: 33105
March: 29440
Feb: 18907
Jan: 19019
December: 33153

Quite a bit of data! :eek:
 

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stanw said:
How did you determine how much data you have used since January?

I just checked under my 4S Cellular usage and it indicates 579MB Sent and 1.3GB received. Is this the amount of data I have used on my iPhone since I got it?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Yes.

My employer pays for the phone and the carrier service so I don't have access to the monthly bills. But the phone was given to me on January 2nd 2012 and I haven't reset cellular usage.

Technically I could probably add 1 gb or so to that because I use to use a Verizon tablet as a portable LTE hotspot. But I got tired of moving the tablet around with me.

----------
ChazUK said:
I tether extensively so I use quite a bit of data on Three UK. Numbers below since December last year. :D

Figure is megabytes
November: 141309
October: 58450
September: 86152
August: 101384
July: 123954
June: 47014
May: 69229
April: 33105
March: 29440
Feb: 18907
Jan: 19019
December: 33153

Quite a bit of data! :eek:
Click to expand...

Holy crap. What do you do to use so much data? Use cellular instead of wifi I assume?
 
cynics said:
Holy crap. What do you do to use so much data? Use cellular instead of wifi I assume?
Click to expand...

I was getting around 10 meg on my Galaxy Nexus and our home brodaband is crap:
67266091

That is on a particularly bad day but it normally hovers around 1 to 2.5 meg on a good day.

Now I'm hitting up to 20 meg on the Nexus 4, there's no hope I'll be using my broadband much. :D
294287608.png
 
For those of you using data ranging from 2.5GB and up, what are you doing to use that much data? Do you use it instead of a home internet connection? Can you please give me some examples of your day-to-day phone activities to get into that range?

Thanks!
 
I rarely use more than 500mb each month as I'm always on wifi when it's available.

Just switched my family plan over to the 8gb share everything. Previously had unlimited data two lines but neither line has ever used more than 1gb in a single month and the other two use data in the 25-50mb range.

We'll save about $20/month and our mothers can now talk as much as they want as they were the the only ones using any of the 1400 minutes on our previous family plan.
 
150MB per month lol! I use tapatalk and mail and that's it! Everywhere I go I have wifi so that's why I don't really care about lte! I have the 4S
 
I have wifi at home and work, and don't spend much time anywhere else, so my usage is below 200Mb a month. That makes the £6.90 a month plan from 3 (500Mb, 200 minutes, 5000 texts, 2000 3-3 minutes) the best fit for me. Read it and weep Americans! :D
 
rbrian said:
I have wifi at home and work, and don't spend much time anywhere else, so my usage is below 200Mb a month. That makes the £6.90 a month plan from 3 (500Mb, 200 minutes, 5000 texts, 2000 3-3 minutes) the best fit for me. Read it and weep Americans! :D
Click to expand...

Oh how I weep indeed... I miss living in EU (2002-2009)
 
stanw said:
For those of you using data ranging from 2.5GB and up, what are you doing to use that much data? Do you use it instead of a home internet connection? Can you please give me some examples of your day-to-day phone activities to get into that range?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'm almost always over 2.5gigs. I'm on wifi at work and at home. No point in using it at home when I have a 50/5 internet connection at all times.

It's when I'm moving around here in Boston where it racks up. I stream Pandora/Spotify in my BMW and its iDrive NAV is pretty subpar, so I use a lot of Google Navigation. I have gReader pushing me RSS updates every 10 minutes and my Gmail (4 diff't accounts) is set to push. And lots of other apps, like CNN, Facebook, instagram, etc.
 
stanw said:
Which phone are you using? Does it have LTE?
Click to expand...

I use the Samsung Galaxy S3 and it does have LTE. My old phone (HTC Desire Z) only has HSPA+. I find my data usage is pretty much identicle on both phones. It would be less than 1GB per month unless I am streaming a tennis match. I like watching tennis and occasionally try to catch big matches when I am out of the house. I may just watch for an hour or so. That only happens a few times a year.
 
I have the $15 200 MB-a-month plan, and I usually use 120-180 MB a month.

I'm considering moving up to the $20 300 MB-a-month plan so I can be a little more loose with my data usage. But knowing that once I move to the 300 MB plan, I can't go back made me hesitant.
 
On LTE, I always use at least 20GBs a month....
On HSPA+ though, I only use around 10-12. How do some of you use less than one GB a month ._.
 
stanw said:
For those of you using data ranging from 2.5GB and up, what are you doing to use that much data? Do you use it instead of a home internet connection? Can you please give me some examples of your day-to-day phone activities to get into that range?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

High data usage almost always comes down to streaming audio and video. If you use Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, etc - data rates rack up quickly. This is especially true for apps that adjust quality based on the bitrate.

Or your just tethering and using it for a home internet connection. Which is why US cell companies made people switch off unlimited to use the personal hotspot and started throttling. LTE speeds are often faster than home broadband, so it makes sense they want to discourage mass tethering.
 
stanw said:
For those of you using data ranging from 2.5GB and up, what are you doing to use that much data? Do you use it instead of a home internet connection? Can you please give me some examples of your day-to-day phone activities to get into that range?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ever since I got LTE I just don't bother with Wifi since I'm always in LTE coverage. So also, then I just have a lot of things auto upload. All photos get uploaded to dropbox as a backup, as well as my phone backups get uploaded to dropbox. Then last month I used 30GB of data (mostly uploads) lol, because my upload LTE speed is around 20Mbps compared to 2up at home wifi, I my phone to upload a bunch of videos to dropbox and youtube since it's that much faster.

I got my Razr M "hacked" to use the stock tether even with unlimited data so it makes allowing my MBP to connect so much easier.
 
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