Ask Dr. LJ -- Smartphone Edition

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

So I purchased my cell phone when Bush Jr. was president. It's old and battered and doesn't hold a charge well and I feel like it's time to get a smartphone.

In unrelated news, Apple just announced it's releasing a super-sized iPhone that will fit quite comfortably in my large, meaty hands.

However, having a smartphone means I need a data plan of some sort if I hope to truly have the internet in my pants. I have no idea what a reasonable data limit should be. I *believe* I'd be fairly light on the bandwidth, but I might find more data intensive uses for my phone. So how much data is on your plan?

Thanks
Tom

Comments

[minerva42]

Sending you e-mail. :) I just spent some time discussing this with my mom.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I'm currently without any kind of mobile phone at all. I'm looking, somewhat seriously, at Ting (ting.com). They're unique in the US in that they don't have plans at all. If you use a primary feature of the service (voice, messages, data) then you pay for what you use and that's it. It's not quite pay as you go since payments are divided by usage blocks but it's the closest thing that I've seen in the US to date.

[drwex]

I have been on an unlimited plan. I'm at the point where I want to upgrade the phone and will have to go to some kind of cap. Verizon says that I've been using about 1.6G/mo average. The people who watch videos and (gods help me how do they do that) movies on their phone will use a lot more. I do gaming, maps, and email mostly as my data-intensive things.

[veek.livejournal.com]

I've been on a 2GB/month plan forever, and use my phone to access the internet pretty extensively. A few times I've come close enough to using up my monthly allotment (75%? 85%?) that AT&T sent me an automatic notification about it, but I've never gone over.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Same here, though I have never come close enough to using up my monthly allotment to get a notification.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

What she said. Unless you do crazy, crazy things, a 2gb/mo plan should be fine.

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

I won't be much help here, I've got a grandfathered account via T-Mobile that's got unlimited data for $59.99.
If they still offer it, I'd say get that.

[sla.livejournal.com]

Check out Ting Wireless - they use the sprint network. We would be switching to them since their tiered structure is awesome and cheap but they are not available at our house (roaming only and we can't sign up with roaming only at our residence). No contract and pay for you use.

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

I've been using iPhones for a few years and I think only three times I've exceeded half my free monthly data cap of 2GB. I'm usually well under.

[doctordidj.livejournal.com]

I've got Virgin Mobile for $35/month for 50 GB. I've never gotten anywhere near the limit.