DQOTD: Phone Data Usage?

[Midpack]

Downgraded our Verizon plan (data and 2 line access charges) from 10GB@$92.40/mo to 4GB@$79.00/mo. Should be more than enough data for us.

 

[NanoSour]

OK, we have 3 iphones in the house (2 4's, 1 5s) and we use on average about 20MB of data per month. I have a 200MB/month plan with Consumer Cellular for $5/month. I keep data turned off on the phones unless there is a specific need for the data. Don't use it for entertainment unless we have wifi. Actually, just really don't use the phones for entertainment at all with all the other options available; laptops, ipad, computers, TV.

We're definitely an outlier in the modern world of communications. We have 3 teenagers in the house and only the oldest has a phone. She uses it a lot in the house for texting, but doesn't use it much outside the house as she has essentially no data. I don't think this is such a bad thing.

BTW, Consumer Cellular bill is 53.94/month for 200 minutes/2000 texts/200MB. The only one we ever come close to exceeding is the 200 minutes usually around the holidays. When we are on wifi (90% of the time) we use free Vonage app to make phone calls and that keeps us under the 200 minutes. Down side is I usually don't answer the phone and call people back with vonage so I don't use my minutes.

This has worked well for the past 3 years and I figure is saving us roughly $1000/year which I'm sure is wasted somewhere else in the family budget. At least it's not wasted on DD watching silly YT videos.

 

[Sunset]

We use T-mobile pre-paid, ends up costing us less than $100/yr as our time rolls over with a small top up once per year.

Naturally we have no data, but with so much free wifi around, I don't miss it. We have a super nice GPS with a screen twice the size of a phone, for the car. But as I understand it, even if we used gps on the phone, it would not use data. Haven't bothered to learn how.

 

[audreyh1]

My $50 plan becomes nearly $58 after all the fees are added on so $70 all inclusive is not too bad. But I will rarely exceed 1GB and maybe never 2GB so saving $12 a month is good for me. And even if I do go over, it just means, the internet slows down, it doesn't stop working or rack up extra charges.

Right - that is what DH was paying before we added my line.

Now two lines unlimited offer is $120, but we are paying around $96 for our $80 plan once you include taxes and fees. We certainly don't need the unlimited high speed data feature. We have 6G each including tethering, and unlimited talk and text covering Mexico, Canada and US, wifi calling, and cheap calling, free text and data when we are overseas.

So I guess we're saving $12 a month each!

 

[ejman]

I use a $20 smart phone (Moto E tracfone) I typically buy a 1 year plan in December which gives me 1200 phone minutes, 1200 texts and 1.2 gigs of data for $100/year. I've found this sufficient for the whole year. I use Wifi whenever available which is most of the time so my data use is minimal being that the big data hogs are music and video. I have downloaded about 200 hours of music to my phone and plenty of books so I don't lack for phone based entertainment when away from a WiFi connection.

 

[Chuckanut]

I switched to Ting a few months back. It is rare that I go over 1 gig of data a month.

My bill has dropped from $50 a month to about $25 a month. If I do use an extra gig or two it might go to $40 a month max. I have been very satisfied with the service and performance of Ting.

 

[ERD50]

I switched to Ting a few months back. It is rare that I go over 1 gig of data a month.

My bill has dropped from $50 a month to about $25 a month. If I do use an extra gig or two it might go to $40 a month max. I have been very satisfied with the service and performance of Ting.

+1 to Ting. And a second line is just $6/month.

-ERD50

 

[tulak]

My $50 plan becomes nearly $58 after all the fees are added on so $70 all inclusive is not too bad. But I will rarely exceed 1GB and maybe never 2GB so saving $12 a month is good for me. And even if I do go over, it just means, the internet slows down, it doesn't stop working or rack up extra charges.

Don't forget KickBack. T-Mobile gives you a $10 credit for each line that uses less than 2GB of data.

What's not clear to me is if BingeOn goes against the 2GB of data usage. This is another great feature of T-Mobile. Video consumes most of your data and for the popular sites, it doesn't account against your data cap. This is true even if you have one of their old plans (like I do).

Right - that is what DH was paying before we added my line.

Now two lines unlimited offer is $120, but we are paying around $96 for our $80 plan once you include taxes and fees. We certainly don't need the unlimited high speed data feature. We have 6G each including tethering, and unlimited talk and text covering Mexico, Canada and US, wifi calling, and cheap calling, free text and data when we are overseas.

So I guess we're saving $12 a month each!

With KickBack, you're only saving $2/month, assuming you stay under 2GB.

For families, T-Mobile is about the best value you can find. We're still on T-Mobile Simple Choice and pay $85 for the plan and $10 for taxes, $95 total. Normally this plan would cost $100, but we get a 15% discount. For this, we get 4GB per line and most of the other benefits, with the free overseas data being most useful. This is for a family of four with two teenagers who have used almost 5GB of data last month. Normally this plan would be 2.5GB, but T-Mobile offered promotions over time which increased our data limit.

And occasionally they offer promotions, such as high-speed data in Europe over the summer, which we were able to use for 4 weeks last year. That was a *very* nice bonus.

I've looked at transferring to the $160/month plan, but even if we get a 15% discount it comes to $136/month. Count in two $20/credits and that brings it down to $116. That's still $21/month more than what we have now. Not worth the upgrade.

Another plus with the T-Mobile One plan is that it supports high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. We usually go to Canada a couple of times a year and the data connection is always slow (way worse than in Asia/Europe). This could be one advantage to the T-Mobile One plan, especially if it only costs a few dollars more per month.

 

[broadway]

We use T-mobile pre-paid, ends up costing us less than $100/yr as our time rolls over with a small top up once per year.

Naturally we have no data, but with so much free wifi around, I don't miss it. We have a super nice GPS with a screen twice the size of a phone, for the car. But as I understand it, even if we used gps on the phone, it would not use data. Haven't bothered to learn how.

I have the same grandfathered T-mobile pre-paid as you.
$100 for 1000 minutes. But this year, I will probably just add $10 to keep it alive.

I bought two (2) $100 Verizon Wireless gift cards for $75 each with an American Express offer, so I will be using my Verizon prepaid a lot in the coming two years.

 

[audreyh1]

OK - well didn't know about kickback. That's very interesting! It's really hard to get through T-Mobiles marketing info about current pricing sometimes. So we're only saving $2 each. Oh well! LOL!

 

[respond2u]

So what's everyone else doing with their phones that uses way more data than we seem to?

Young people send and receive photos and videos on vine, Instagram, snapchat, Facebook, etc. They also (nearly compulsively) take photos that get automatically backed up to a remote server (e. G., iCloud).

That can burn gigabytes each month easily...

 

[audreyh1]

Don't forget KickBack. T-Mobile gives you a $10 credit for each line that uses less than 2GB of data.

What's not clear to me is if BingeOn goes against the 2GB of data usage. This is another great feature of T-Mobile. Video consumes most of your data and for the popular sites, it doesn't account against your data cap. This is true even if you have one of their old plans (like I do).

With KickBack, you're only saving $2/month, assuming you stay under 2GB.

For families, T-Mobile is about the best value you can find. We're still on T-Mobile Simple Choice and pay $85 for the plan and $10 for taxes, $95 total. Normally this plan would cost $100, but we get a 15% discount. For this, we get 4GB per line and most of the other benefits, with the free overseas data being most useful. This is for a family of four with two teenagers who have used almost 5GB of data last month. Normally this plan would be 2.5GB, but T-Mobile offered promotions over time which increased our data limit.

And occasionally they offer promotions, such as high-speed data in Europe over the summer, which we were able to use for 4 weeks last year. That was a *very* nice bonus.

I've looked at transferring to the $160/month plan, but even if we get a 15% discount it comes to $136/month. Count in two $20/credits and that brings it down to $116. That's still $21/month more than what we have now. Not worth the upgrade.

Another plus with the T-Mobile One plan is that it supports high-speed data in Canada and Mexico. We usually go to Canada a couple of times a year and the data connection is always slow (way worse than in Asia/Europe). This could be one advantage to the T-Mobile One plan, especially if it only costs a few dollars more per month.

Hmmmm - T-mobile just announced that for existing customers, for a limited time, two lines for $100 including all taxes and fees. If that includes kickbacks, it would be cheaper than our current plan of $95-97 for two lines including taxes and fees. https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/tmobile-one-ups-verizon.htm

So we have to figure out how kickbacks apply. We use less than 1G a month typically, our 20GB data stash is full for each of us. Our current plan gives each of us 6G per month.

So could this new offer get us down to $80 a month?

 

[broadway]

Hmmmm - T-mobile just announced that for existing customers, for a limited time, two lines for $100 including all taxes and fees. If that includes kickbacks, it would be cheaper than our current plan of $95-97 for two lines including taxes and fees. https://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news-and-blogs/tmobile-one-ups-verizon.htm

So we have to figure out how kickbacks apply. We use less than 1G a month typically, our 20GB data stash is full for each of us. Our current plan gives each of us 6G per month.

So could this new offer get us down to $80 a month?

$95-$97/month for 2 lines is expensive.

If you are using less than 1 GB per month, why are you paying so much for your plans??

Yesterday, I bought a Tracfone SIM kit at Target. Put the CDMA micro SIM into my Verizon pre-paid Motorola E (2nd Generation) and have service on Verizon network. On Tracfone, 1GB is $10. Then just buy minutes and texts.

I used to have T-mobile plan with 100 minutes/100 texts/5 GB data for $30/month. I think it is still available from Walmart.

 

[audreyh1]

$95-$97/month for 2 lines is expensive.

If you are using less than 1 GB per month, why are you paying so much for your plans??

Yesterday, I bought a Tracfone SIM kit at Target. Put the CDMA micro SIM into my Verizon pre-paid Motorola E (2nd Generation) and have service on Verizon network. On Tracfone, 1GB is $10. Then just buy minutes and texts.

I used to have T-mobile plan with 100 minutes/100 texts/5 GB data for $30/month. I think it is still available from Walmart.

It's less than we were paying for Verizon, and we have seamless coverage internationally which is really important to us. I really don't want to have to deal with other phones overseas.

We would use more data if we really needed it. We just don't use much data at home in the US.

 

[broadway]

It's less than we were paying for Verizon, and we have seamless coverage internationally which is really important to us. I really don't want to have to deal with other phones overseas.

We would use more data if we really needed it. We just don't use much data at home in the US.

If you want T-mobile, why are you not on the cheaper $30/month plan available at Walmart or Tmobile.com?

https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans

 

[audreyh1]

If you want T-mobile, why are you not on the cheaper $30/month plan available at Walmart or Tmobile.com?

https://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/other-prepaid-plans

Those cheaper T-mobile plans don't offer the international coverage. You have to have the T-mobile Simple Choice plan or One plan for that. The T-mobile pre-paid plans definitely do not support it.

 

[NW-Bound]

... in the past two years our highest monthly data usage was 2.7GB. I use search often and stream YouTube videos and other data intensive stuff from time to time, though not often. We do use WiFi wherever it's available, that might make a difference in our data usage...

I have a 6GB plan. We do not use the phones much outside of the home where they are on our WiFi, so we normally use very little.

Last week I was up at the high-country home for 5 nights. ATT network now works up there, and I used 2GB in just a few days! Holy Moly!

I discovered that it was because I tethered my laptop, and doggone Bloomberg and other Web sites would play uninvited videos on the multi-tab Google Chrome browser behind my back (I turned off the audio, hence did not know the video was playing), and use up lots of data, despite my limiting myself to just surf this forum and read some news.

This brings me to this point. Why do these doggone sites like to play videos so much, and uninvited at that? I can read the text or transcripts a lot faster than watching these talking heads. It's harder now to find a news site that just gives me the text articles and some photos. Like old newspapers and magazines, you know?

 

[respond2u]

I tried T-mobile when I was traveling internationally and it worked well overseas.

Here in the US, not so good. Calls would drop as I walked through the house, and my daughter didn't have coverage on her large state campus.

We switched to Cricket and it worked great for us. It was also cheaper than T-mobile at the time (tho not for other countries).

 

[Live And Learn]

Pageplus user here (learned about it from this forum). Once a year I pay $80 and get 2000 minutes (each text counts as 2 minutes). I use zero data. If I can't get WiFi I just do without. Have never felt that I've missed anything.

 

[Dawg52]

I have a 1 GB plan and use about 1/2 that. The only time I use data is when I'm out of town(1 week per mo) mainly to check emails and do a few web searches. I keep my data turned off when I'm home. I have friends who keep it on all the time and use it like I would my laptop. For some, it is their only device to search the web.

 

[broadway]

Those cheaper T-mobile plans don't offer the international coverage. You have to have the T-mobile Simple Choice plan or One plan for that. The T-mobile pre-paid plans definitely do not support it.

$35/month x 12 months = $420 is a lot of money to be paying for international coverage.

 

[audreyh1]

I tried T-mobile when I was traveling internationally and it worked well overseas.

Here in the US, not so good. Calls would drop as I walked through the house, and my daughter didn't have coverage on her large state campus.

We switched to Cricket and it worked great for us. It was also cheaper than T-mobile at the time (tho not for other countries).

We have terrible cell reception at home from any carrier, T-mobile is no worse than AT&T or Verizon.

What solved the problem, and this was a big impetus to switch, was T-mobile's early support of wifi calling. Once wifi calling was available, all our at home cellphone reception problems went away completely.

Their Mexico and Canada coverage included also really helps and I don't get charged anything when my phone picks up a Mexican cellphone company as we are so close to the border.

 

[audreyh1]

$35/month x 12 months = $420 is a lot of money to be paying for international coverage.

It's good that we can easily afford it then, isn't it.

Priorities. Life simplification (on our terms) is a big one for us.

BTW - I'm not sure where you are getting the $35 per month extra. Even those $30 per line options have taxes and fees tacked on so the final price is higher. Without taxes and fees the comparison would be $60 versus $80 per month, or a $20 difference.

We also use our hotspot capability a lot when traveling. Does the $30 plan provide that? I don't see it listed.

How about wifi calling? We would be dead in the water without wifi calling.

We also use the free Mexico coverage - a convenience feature being close to the border.

I often go over 100 minutes.

 

[mpeirce]

What solved the problem, and this was a big impetus to switch, was T-mobile's early support of wifi calling. Once wifi calling was available, all our at home cellphone reception problems went away completely.

We have poor cell coverage in our house too and love WiFi calling as the solution.

If you have iPhones (5c or newer) almost all the north American carriers support this. Certainly the majors do (ATT, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile). Here's the official list:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204039

Also note that on some carriers (ATT, Sprint, others) you can also use WiFi calling on non-phone devices. That means you can call a phone number (not Skype or FaceTime) using iPads, Macs, even Apple Watches. I find this handy once in a while if I'm using my Mac or iPad when the phone rings. If nothing else, if you enable this you have extra devices ringing when a call comes in.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032

 

[audreyh1]

We have poor cell coverage in our house too and love WiFi calling as the solution.

If you have iPhones (5c or newer) almost all the north American carriers support this. Certainly the majors do (ATT, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile). Here's the official list:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204039

Also note that on some carriers (ATT, Sprint, others) you can also use WiFi calling on non-phone devices. That means you can call a phone number (not Skype or FaceTime) using iPads, Macs, even Apple Watches. I find this handy once in a while if I'm using my Mac or iPad when the phone rings. If nothing else, if you enable this you have extra devices ringing when a call comes in.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032

Yeah - T-mobile and Sprint were the first to implement. About a year ahead of the others, I think, and supporting older hardware.

Yep I also use the multi-device ring and phone and text messages coming across all iOS devices including my watch and my laptop, but I assumed this was an iOS feature.