How To Choose A Data Plan
Data plans are what you buy to get access to the internet and browse on the world wide web. Just like you pay for minutes in a phone call, you pay for data to use the internet. Data plans cover almost everything you do on the internet, using any device.
What is data?
- Data is anything you read, watch or download from the internet. It could be pictures, videos, links, posts, games, anything.
- Anything and everything that has a unit of measurement (bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte) all come under the data and affects your data plan in some way or the other.
- All cell phone data plans are measured and priced on the data you have used.
- Using excess data than planned, often leads to one paying the extra premium amount.
How much data do you need?
- Knowing how much data you consume helps you understand what kind of data plan you are going to need.
- One of the best ways to know is trial and error, where you apply for a bigger plan that you estimate you will need and then downgrade it the next time.
- Another way is to apply for a prepaid internet. See how much of the data you run through in a month and accordingly place your plan.
How much does data cost?
- The cost of data is directly related to the amount of data consumed.
- With a prepaid, you will be paying around $80 for 5GB of data.
- A monthly contract will provide you with around 10GB of data for the same price ($80).
- For $35, wireless will give you internet for a month with no data caps. But the mobility is crippled with this plan.
- Therefore, the cost of a data plan depends upon the usage of the internet, whether it’s via a fixed line or mobile.
- There is also a concern exceeding the data cap, which in turn affects the cost.
Where is the data most used?
- It will take up to 50KB of data to update your Facebook feed, 70KB for twitter and 30KB-150KB for Instagram. That’s approximately 0.07GB per month on social media.
- Web browsing of the various websites throughout the month will take no more than 100MB.
- Email is the next best feature used on a smartphone and surprisingly, its monthly usage comes to around 0.02 GB.
- Streaming music and podcasts for two hours a day can consume up to 3.5GB of data.
- Streaming a standard definition video of 60 minutes a day can use up to 8 GB per month and an HD quality video up to 30 GB.
- Data usage on games is pretty subjective and based on the game. Small games like Candy Crush will hardly threaten the data overage.
What are data caps?
- No two people use the internet in the same way. If there is no data cap, the excessive user will make the internet congested and slower for the other one.
- Data caps are set by the internet service provider to set a limit on the usage of the internet.
- When a user exceeds the data cap they need to pay an overage fee, which is usually 10% of the monthly contract.
- If your provider doesn’t charge you extra than he will make sure that your internet is a lot slower for the rest of the term.
- Although, the biggest concern most of the time is exceeding the data cap, which is 2 to 20 GB for a cell phone plan.
How do I monitor my data usage?
- Till this point, you know how much data you use and what kind of package or plan you will need to consider.
- You will also need to monitor your data usage during your plan to make proper adjustments whenever necessary.
- One of the many ways to monitor data usage is downloading apps which are designed for this purpose.
- You can also ask your service provider who will be able to provide an estimate on it by logging in to your account online.
- There are many services send notifications, emails, and messages regarding the data bundle usage.
