Data Usage

i work from home so my phone is pretty much always connected to wifi — according to it, i’ve used 8.1 GB of cellular data since august 21, 2012, which i don’t think is a lot, so i never know how much i should buy when i travel abroad and get a local SIM (btw, here’s a good resource for prepaid plans with data, organized by country). i usually just get whichever plan “sounds right” (2 GB for a week? SURE!).

i was chatting with a friend though, which got me re-interested in my data use, and since i’m actually on a prepaid SIM now, i can see how much i’ve used since i got it (and topped up) about 30 hours ago when i landed in Bergen. now y’all probably know i’m a twitter addict, and when i’m traveling i’m an instagram addict as well, not to mention maps when I get lost or Yelp or TripAdvisor and Foursquare and Google Translate and general web stuff, so i think this is pretty indicative of my normal usage, 161 MB in 30 hours, with my mail set to fetch (not push) every 30 minutes and connecting to hotel wifi when i’m at the hotel.

btw, since we’re on the subject of prices in Norway, FYI: i paid 49 NOK ($8.45) for the SIM card at the newsstand at Bergen airport, and then added on a 199 NOK ($34.33) plan (had to do it using the company’s website, which i was able to access thanks to airport wifi) which included 500 domestic minutes, 500 SMS, and 500 MB for a month. clearly overkill, but the alternative was 1.99 NOK per MB (and since i didn’t know how much data i normally use, i didn’t want to estimate, though now it turns out that’d be say, 175 MB when all is said and done by the time i leave tomorrow, 348.25 NOK, or ~$60). in any case, the “Norgespakken” plan i’m on now still worked out to be cheaper than the Verizon $25 for 100 MB plan which i have activated as a backup. (i’m all about local SIMs — rarely will you find that the roaming plans offered by Verizon and AT&T are good deals if you plan to use a lot of data.)

so, new rule of thumb: 150-175 MB per day — i guess that sounds reasonable, but i’ll have to do more testing to make sure that’s correct.