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Thinking of getting an adroid phone next time around and wondering how much internet download allowance I need for occasionally checking my email and a bit of browsing i.e. weather etc. How much do folk use? Is 500mb a month enough?
Most months 500mb is enough. Then one month you're doing something important - looking for a job, landline broadband ****s up, need a loan etc etc then you can get stung with major bills. Or on Tesco mobile - they dont give any warning - just cut your number off.
All in my wifes experience.
Checking email or would it be pushing? If the latter you may need a pretty hefty allowance.
My understanding is most new unlimited plans have a 500mb fair use limit, so you may not have a choice over that when it comes to inclusive amounts allowed.
most people seem to do 1gbit, t mobile do 3. probably won't use it but certainly won't use 5000 texts
Streaming radio via the network uses 100Mb per three hour programme. Five days listening to Lauren Lavern on 6Music would use my entire data allowance.
if its simple use as you describe, 500mb will be enough.
if you're constantly browsing then it may start to squeeze that limit.
Forget about video downloading though ... it'll blow through the limit in no time. Decent videos off youtube are 30 to 40mb minimum. They would quickly add up to the 500mb limit.
I have an android app which shows how much data i have downloaded in that month and what percentage it is of my allowance. a typical daily use ( quite weather check, bbc news mobile, couple of google searchs and perhaps the odd map check ) and it'll be sub 10mb per day.
A few hours browsing, reading the forums etc and push that quickly up ... but overall it does seem to average out to less than the limit.
In my 19months with 02, I averaged 505Mb per month. That included occasional google, but heavy consumption each time, regular facebook & email checks, stw browsing, all sorts - I'd say I used it quite a bit. when i signed up to them it was unlimited useage.
now on orange and 500mb limit. I think it's plenty really - I now do all my sat nav on an app rather than google, and dont do internet radio over 3g as much.
500Mb should be more than enough for most people, as long as you're not watching Youtube or streaming last.fm. If you have wifi at home make sure the phone is set to use that when it's available (and save podcast downloads etc. for those times), and install 3G watchdog or a similar app.