Data usage while on the road.

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MikeCoke

MikeCoke

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 6, 2005
Posts
288
Location
Four Corners Area of Colorado
I just looked at our Verizon statements for the 6 months we were on the road this past winter and on my Phone  which I HotSpot we averaged over 20 gigs a month and one month was over 40 gigs. So glad I still have unlimited Data on my phone. Wendy has 5 gig plan on her phone and comes very close to using all of her 5 gigs.
Hope Verizon never does away with my unlimited plan.
 
Hey Mike,

You are lucky to still have it.  Be careful if you get a phone upgrade, sometimes they do not tell you that you may lose your unlimited plan.

I have Verizon with the MiFi and 30 gigs and pay about $250 a month. 

I wish I still had my old unlimited plan.

Good for you.
 
An unlimited plan would be great of course, but we manage pretty well with our 20/GB $100/month plan. We rarely go over by more than 2 or 3 GB at $8/GB.
 
I too have unlimited data on my phone and turned the hotspot feature on for our trip north last month.  Even though we used campground WiFi when available and usable, we still used 14+GB on the hotspot for the 2 weeks.  Once we got to Milwaukee and had the cable internet connected, we used 25GB the first day!  Lots of software updates to catch up on plus a few Netflix shows in the evening do add up :)
 
Up here in Canada we're paying $235 for 30gb, and $15 for every gb over. We're constantly monitoring our usage (esp with three kids). Our biggest enemy is app updates. You can easily kill your daily quota when a bunch of game updates come out and each kid wants it. Or the semi-weekly FB/LinkedIn/Messenger etc, all over 60mb; make sure auto updates are OFF!  :eek:
 
Ned -- Wow! ---- and I am sure I can hear Lorna in the background asking, "Who is the "we" that is using all that data?"  ;D -- or is that the Royal "We"?  ;D

And I do get worried when I read threads like this.  What happens when we've used up all the available data?

And some may be interested to know that in our area Verizon is offering a plan with a monthly allowance of not just 10 Gigs of data, but "10 Gigantic Gigs of data".  I thought maybe you could explain to this Luddite what that technical term "Gigantic Gig" means...

Thanks.  In the meantime, be on the watch for the data control team responsible for controlling the usage of those with "unlimited" plans..... Rumor has it that they strongly resemble the (in)famous "Blues Brothers"....

Be Well.  Don
 
Don, fortunately data is like money.  When we run out, we just print some more :)

Hey, Lorna watched those Netflix shows too.

A standard gigabyte is 1000 standard megabytes (1000 standard kilobytes) while a Gigantic Gigabyte is 1024 Gigantic Megabytes (...)  See the difference?

I'm sure the unlimited data will eventually go away, either by my choice or by Verizon's, but for now, I'll enjoy it but try not to abuse it.

See you in TX next winter, hopefully.
 
I too have unlimited 3G with my air card. We watch TV shows on Amazon Prime, which I am sure uses a fair amount of data.  They have tried to get me to jump to 4G on several occasions but that would mean losing my unlimited plan. Nope, won't do it. 
 
Marty, we get unlimited data on my 4G smartphone.  If you buy a 4G hotspot outright, you should be able to keep your unlimited data plan.
 
Nope, I tried before.  If I go from 3G to 4G my unlimited plan goes away. My smart phone is 4G and the data plan for that is 4G, but I couldn't include my air card lest I would lose my old plan.
 
I'm actually starting to work my day gig from my coach - and am trying to get my head around what sort of data plan I'm going to need.  Fortunately, I've been able to use a company issued Verizon MIFI hotspot for a bit - but will need to start providing my own internet connectivity shortly.  Based on my monitoring ... it looks like I'm moving 200-250 MB of data in the course of a typical 8 hour work day.  A 10GB per month plan should cover me with a little bit of room to spare.
 
Turn off all your auto updates on your laptop and turn off the stuff you use on your phone if you are not using it. Go someplace like Starbucks or McDonald's once a month and use their free wifi to download any updates. We did that even after we got the double gigs that Verizon offered last year. Went from 15 to 30 for the same price. and never even get close to 15 anymore.
 
If you have the cash, and REALLY need or want the data, there is another option. Verizon has indeed done away with the unlimited data unless you keep your old phone forever. However, to torture those that still have unlimited data, they do what's called "throttling" of your unlimited data, which means slowing the speeds down, which make it sometimes intolerable. They're trying to force us all to LIMITED data plans where they can charge us the more we use it. However, a little know fact is you can get on E-Bay and buy out someone's unlimited contract and Verizon itself will transfer it to your account, which at this point they can't prevent. If you do that, then you buy a Verizon Hot Spot device and assign your new unlimited data plan to the Hot Spot, then use the Hot Spot data to connect your NON-unlimited phones, laptops, etc. However, everything comes at a cost. To buy someone's unlimited data plan out, it will cost you around $500, and you have to be REALLY careful of the scams out there. There are legitimate sellers and of course the bums, so you have to read the fine print and check out the seller, but it IS doable and for those of us that need it, $500 is cheaper than paying for the high GB plans. FYI...
 
I have heard of that before, but have never actually found anyone that has done it. And I am skeptical that Verizon has not come up with a way to prevent it.
 
You certainly can keep an unlimited data plan and changes phones as often as you like, but you have to buy the phones outright, no subsidies.  I'm on my 3rd smartphone with an unlimited data plan.  You can also change features without loosing the unlimited data, but you can't change the voice and text plan with loosing it.  When we were on our way north, I enabled the hotspot feature on my phone until we got our cable internet in Milwaukee, then turned it off.  It was prorated at $30/month ($1/day) for the time I had it enabled.  It had no effect on my unlimited data and we, in fact, watched some Netflix programs using the phone as the hotspot.

I have heard of people buying unlimited data plans but have never known anyone personally that has done it.
 
I had not heard of buying someone's unlimited plan, either.  But, the first thing that comes to mind is I would assume the account would have to remain in the seller's name.  Not sure how that would impact things as long as the plan requires advance payment, but it would make me nervous from either standpoint - buyer or seller.  For example, what would keep the seller from just closing the account after they collect your $500?  Now, if the carrier permits transferring the account to another name, then maybe it would work okay.
 
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