[geeks] Smart phone data usage

[Michael Parson]

On Wed, 6 Jul 2011, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Soliciting the wisdom of the collective here.
>
>
> First, the reasons:
> Work issued me a crackberry when I was hired, and I (&$@^#^%@%#@ HATE
> the )(*@$()*&$#^%^@# thing.  It can reduce me to frustrated rage in mere
> minutes.

<snip>

> 2GB of *data* per month.  On a *phone*.  That just seems like a hell
> of a lot more than I'd ever use.  BUT, I don't know how much data
> mapping and navigation (pretty much the only data features I expect
> I'd ever use on it, unless I write mobile-specific versions of some of
> my own web apps) actually use.
>
> SO.  If you have a smartphone, and you make significant use of mapping
> and navigation ... about how much data do they typically use?  How
> much data do YOU use per month?  Assume I won't be streaming music
> to it, watching movies on it (movies on a sub-5" screen?  Cthulhu
> forbid), or anything like that.  I'll almost certainly never install a
> single game on it, and the odds are against me finding a "phone app" I
> give a crap about, beyond the web browser and maybe a notepad (though
> an SSH client might be useful in rare emergencies).

I've got a G2 via T-Mobile.

I don't do a LOT of navigation, but I do use it more than I thought I
would, pretty much any time I'm headed somewhere I've never been before,
even if in town.  I also use it whenever I'm traveling to visit family
out of town, it gives me a nice ETA on the screen, which helps keep the
kiddo quiet in the back seat, and it gives me the ability to answer that
question quickly enough when my mom calls for the 8th time on the trip
asking when I'll be there.

I do watch some streaming video, but not a whole lot, some youtube, the
occassional link-up to my Slingbox, and if I'm somewhere w/o free wi-fi,
I'll tether my laptop to the phone so I can get some work done, or turn
on wi-fi tethering so my kiddo can watch stuff on the android tablet
(Archos 70) while we're driving around.

And I have K-9 checking my mail on 6 different accounts.

T-Mobile only lets me go back 3 months to see what my data usage has
been, the last 3 billing cycles show I used .3468 gig, .2386, and .3024.

So, the heavist usage in the last quarter has been just over 1/3 a gig.

I am a heavy user of the phone, do lots of wireless stuff with it, but I
try and use wifi any time I can, even jumping through the goofy hoops I
had to jump through to get it to work on the LEAP wifi we have at $JOB.

> How likely am I to even *approach* 2GB of data usage per month?  I
> really have no idea how much data usage mapping (likely to be
> infrequent) and navigation (likely even more infrequent) use up.

You're probably going to be OK with 2gigs.  I think the only reason
you'd probably need more would be if you were going to do lots of
netflix streaming, or use it as your primary network access via
tethering to work, or something like that.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org
Austin, TX
KF5LGQ