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I have 3 days left in my billing cycle on phone and I've used 8.5GB of data. I have WiFi everywhere I go too. 500 for $5 would cost me about $50 - unlimited ma

by pests 3y ago

I have 3 days left in my billing cycle on phone and I've used 8.5GB of data. I have WiFi everywhere I go too. 500 for $5 would cost me about $50 - unlimited makes perfect sense.

warner25 3y ago
What do you do with all that, especially with WiFi everywhere? Are you continuously streaming video while on-the-go between WiFi networks? That's fine, it's just stunning. I'm admittedly a minimal user of my phone. I average about 10 unlocks per day. Especially when I'm on-the-go, it's just calls and text messages, some driving directions, and maybe looking up a phone number or business hours. If I use it to listen to an audiobook or podcast, I download those ahead of time on WiFi. Using only 200 MB per month is normal.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  > I'm admittedly a minimal user of my phone. I average about 10 unlocks per day. That's about 5 - 10 times the amount of unlocks I do. Not what I'd consider minimal, at all. :D
  - warner25 3y ago
    Nice! I have a few days in the past month with only 1-2 unlocks, but those are outliers. At a minimum, my wife and I will exchange a couple messages per hour when I'm out of the house. I like to think that I could live as a total weirdo without a phone (just my Google Voice line from my laptop) if I were single.
    - pests 3y ago
      How many times a day do you unlock your laptop though?
      - warner25 3y ago
        Haha, once in the morning, and I then I'm looking at it all day long.
- pests 3y ago
  I don't actually like connecting to public WiFi spots. Ususally the connection is worse than my cellular and why send data through yet another third party network? At least I have a long established relationship with my service provider. Continuously streaming video? Not at all, might watch something here or there but most of my device usage is text or just reading. I barely use the phone or texting or social media. I think we forget just how data-hungry modern apps are. A 1080p "Full-HD" YouTube video will consume 4GB/hour of watch time. Even going down to 480p is still 1GB/hour.
  - warner25 3y ago
    > ...just how data-hungry modern apps are... True. I really try to avoid using the browser for anything unless I'm on WiFi because a single page (really all the other crap that gets loaded besides the actual content that I'm looking for, even with uBlock Origin) might eat dozens of MB. For a while I used the NPR One app to stream podcasts, but I gave it up when it started using way, way more data than streaming audio should ever require.
devindotcom 3y ago
not OP, but anyone who streams music regularly or watches videos on their commute, or does video calls on the go, will rack up pretty serious gigs. I'm with you on low bandwidth usage and certainly on the home bandwidth thing, but some people have a very mobile and streaming-centric lifestyle. It's a bit foreign to me but it's definitely common.

by pests 3y ago

I have 3 days left in my billing cycle on phone and I've used 8.5GB of data. I have WiFi everywhere I go too. 500 for $5 would cost me about $50 - unlimited makes perfect sense.

warner25 3y ago

What do you do with all that, especially with WiFi everywhere? Are you continuously streaming video while on-the-go between WiFi networks? That's fine, it's just stunning. I'm admittedly a minimal user of my phone. I average about 10 unlocks per day. Especially when I'm on-the-go, it's just calls and text messages, some driving directions, and maybe looking up a phone number or business hours. If I use it to listen to an audiobook or podcast, I download those ahead of time on WiFi. Using only 200 MB per month is normal.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> I'm admittedly a minimal user of my phone. I average about 10 unlocks per day. That's about 5 - 10 times the amount of unlocks I do. Not what I'd consider minimal, at all. :D
- warner25 3y ago
  Nice! I have a few days in the past month with only 1-2 unlocks, but those are outliers. At a minimum, my wife and I will exchange a couple messages per hour when I'm out of the house. I like to think that I could live as a total weirdo without a phone (just my Google Voice line from my laptop) if I were single.
  - pests 3y ago
    How many times a day do you unlock your laptop though?
    - warner25 3y ago
      Haha, once in the morning, and I then I'm looking at it all day long.
pests 3y ago
I don't actually like connecting to public WiFi spots. Ususally the connection is worse than my cellular and why send data through yet another third party network? At least I have a long established relationship with my service provider. Continuously streaming video? Not at all, might watch something here or there but most of my device usage is text or just reading. I barely use the phone or texting or social media. I think we forget just how data-hungry modern apps are. A 1080p "Full-HD" YouTube video will consume 4GB/hour of watch time. Even going down to 480p is still 1GB/hour.
- warner25 3y ago
  > ...just how data-hungry modern apps are... True. I really try to avoid using the browser for anything unless I'm on WiFi because a single page (really all the other crap that gets loaded besides the actual content that I'm looking for, even with uBlock Origin) might eat dozens of MB. For a while I used the NPR One app to stream podcasts, but I gave it up when it started using way, way more data than streaming audio should ever require.

devindotcom 3y ago

not OP, but anyone who streams music regularly or watches videos on their commute, or does video calls on the go, will rack up pretty serious gigs. I'm with you on low bandwidth usage and certainly on the home bandwidth thing, but some people have a very mobile and streaming-centric lifestyle. It's a bit foreign to me but it's definitely common.