At the other end of the scale, there are costlier data plans that offer comparatively vast allowances of 30GB or even unlimited data. Checking exactly how much data you're getting through is easy. All you need to do is log in to your account on your computer by visiting your network's website.
Or if you're with one of the larger networks, you can log in to your network's customer account app on your phone. Once you're logged in, you'll be able to see how much data you've used so far this month, as well as in previous months.
Accessing your account on your computer is just a case of visiting your network's website and logging in. Then simply navigate to the section of the app that covers your data allowance. However, using an app to check your data usage isn't quite so simple. That's because networks don't usually pre-install their customer account apps on phones at the point of purchase, so you may need to download the app first.
A less precise but quicker way to get an idea of what sort of data allowance you need is to check which of these user profiles you match. Sound like you? You download email daily to your phone, via an on-board or downloadable email client such as Gmail.
You spend quite a bit of time browsing the internet, and download a few games or applications a month. You like to watch video on online streaming sites such as YouTube every so often and perhaps download a few songs now and then too.
Sound familiar? That means you're classified as a medium data user. You'll require a data allowance of 10GB per month at least. You watch videos online several times a week and are likely to download a lot of applications and games as well as music for your phone. You rely on your mobile internet for work as well as communication with friends and family and need to use your phone for internet access several hours daily.
Does that match your usage habits? That means you're classified as a heavy user. With more and more apps requiring access to data services, it can be hard to work out what apps use how much data. You can check exact usage on your phone. If you have an iPhone, fire up Settings, tap Mobile Data and scroll down to see which apps are using the most data. Android users simply need to tap into the Data Usage menu in Settings to see a detailed graph of how their data usage has changed over the previous months, as well as a list of apps that are hoovering up the most data.
The following is a good guide:. With this information and an honest assessment of how you use your phone for instance, how often do you stream music? If you only access the web or open email on your phone, then a smaller allowance should suit your needs. Running low on data is a familiar problem for many of us. Wi—Fi is your friend when it comes to saving data. Regular home broadband or public Wi—Fi hotspots mean you can download whatever you need before you head out and shift to 3G or 4G networks.
Netflix, Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer all allow you to download programmes over Wi—Fi, meaning that as long as you have enough storage space on your smartphone, you can stash whatever shows you want to watch without having to use data. This is particularly handy for train journeys, where 4G network access can patchy.
Likewise, Spotify and Apple Music allow you to download offline music, so you can listen to playlists, albums and podcasts without having to stream them. Remember, too, that Google Maps allows you to download entire towns, cities and regions, meaning you can use your phone in Airplane mode and still get from A to B.
Find out how to use Google Maps offline. The growth of data rollover has come at the same time as more networks offering data—free services. This means that users can access certain services without them eating into their data allowance, meaning they can either cut back on their package or use it for other services. So you can watch your favourite shows and listen to music without using any data or having to download anything.
A voice minute is easily understood. After all, we all know what a minute is. Ditto for a text message. Data is a little more difficult to quantify, especially for those new to the world of mobile. At Ting Mobile, we offer plans with pay-for-what-you-use data, set data, and unlimited data.
Many of these estimates come directly from an about. We also used numerous other sources to update those numbers where necessary. Mobile versions of websites are designed to be less data heavy than their non-mobile counterparts.
That takes care of the math, but what are the real-world implications? We like to think of them in terms of being small, medium, large and extra-large buckets of data. If we say the average text-only email is 20 KB a piece, we can send and receive about 5, such emails and still stay within the MB Small bucket.
Or, we can visit about 50 web pages in a given month, assuming an average of 2 MB per site yep — modern web pages have gotten quite a bit heftier. We can stream around minutes of music or upload 50 high-quality photos. To me, MB is lot of data per month, and I am a 'heavy' user of my phone, even though the aforementioned data usage shows that in reality I am not.
As Charles Arthur at the Guardian pointed out a few months ago, the average user on my network, O2 only uses MB a month. It's those pesky file sharers again, ruining it for the rest of us. Granted, this is the first gripe I've had with file sharers and pirates, regardless of the fact that it doesn't affect me directly nor the vast majority of O2's customers.
But not everybody churns through less than MB per month. I can't prove this, but I'll take his word for it. Other considerations to take into account such as the capable network speed of your device - whether it is 3G compatible tied in with whether you can receive 3G speeds in your area.
But also, the prevalence of Wi-Fi access, and again whether your device has it plays a part too. But in most cases, the Generation Y do not need Wi-Fi as a necessary complement to a cell smartphone. Yes, there will be times when you want to watch a video on YouTube on your device, but more often than not it can be sent as a Facebook link when you're back at home on your home broadband connected computer.
I think in this case, when customers revolt because something with unlimited length or depth gets clipped to a finite amount, it pays long term to give customers more than they need - or at least think that.
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