250MB mobile internet - how much?

[snapper_37]

Bought my mom an LG on a vodafone plan including 250MB internet data. She's only done a bit of browsing and dowloaded a couple of apps. Has had a message from vodafone saying she was nearly used up her limit and can increase to 500MB for fiver a month.

How much is 250MB in real terms as this seems a bit poor to me.

 

[ian turner]

Watched any videos or streamed any music on it ?

 

[snapper_37]

Hi Ian, no videos or music downloaded.

 

[Fnaar]

Should be poss to check somewhere in phone settings how much has actually been downloaded... might just be a pre-emptive strike from vodafone hoping to catch (out) those who are getting into mobile net surfing...

 

[Rob3rt]

One suggestion, if most of her internet use is at home, if you have WLAN, get her phone hooked up to that. Only use mobile network when out and about. I use my phone to browse a lot, and never exceed anywhere close to my 500mb allowance.

 

[snapper_37]

I'm a bit thick with mobiles and stuff so don't know what WLAN means Rob. Is the phone is connected to the 2G all the time - does this use anything or is it only when surfing etc?

 

[Rob3rt]

I'm a bit thick with mobiles and stuff so don't know what WLAN means Rob. Is the phone is connected to the 2G all the time - does this use anything or is it only when surfing etc?

What is the phone model? The manual will probly be online, and someone could pull out the page to look for. If it is a phone produced in the last 2 years it will most certainly be able to connect to a home wireless network if you have one. This will be faster and save on the data plan.

Im not sure how the mobile network browsing works. I turn my network internet connection off to save battery when I am not using it so couldnt tell you about data use when not activelly browsing.

 

[upsidedown]

Just checked my iphone. The stats were cleared on 5th January; since then i've downloaded 218mb and uploaded 26.5mb.
I have 2 hours every weekday on a train where i'm mostly on here or other websites. I regularly run other apps so would be very surprised if she was anywhere near to the limit. I just tested and opening 5 web pages used 1mb of download.

As above if you have wireless broadband at home you can configure the phone to connect to that when it's available, use that for downloading music or apps as it's completely independant of the contract limit on the phone. Some apps are quite large so it's possible that a couple of these downloaded over the 2G connection have pushed the usage up, once they are downloaded they only use a small amount when in use. As an example the Michel Roux dining app is 293mb to download.

There are apps that will find free wireless spots when you are out and about, all McDonalsds have free wi-fi for example.

cheers

paul

 

[snapper_37]

It's the LG optimus and there is no wireless broadband at the house. I will have to try and find how to check how much is being used as if she can't use it freely and happily, it's a bit of a waste! Thanks for the replies.

 

[fossyant]

Do check what the phone is using - I use less than 150mb of my 500mb limit usually.

 

[ian turner]

There's always the possibility that the apps are eating chunks of the allowance with regular data exchanges you don't know about as forinstance there's currently a bug in yahoo mail synchronisation on windows 7 based phones that is doing that by asking for too much data each time.

 

[snapper_37]

Do check what the phone is using - I use less than 150mb of my 500mb limit usually.

Thanks, trying to find out how to do it but can't seem to..... grrrrrr

 

[TVC]

Take it back to the shop and get them to check it out, those geeks will have the thing sussed in seconds.

 

[Norm]

Blimey, snapper, that's a huge amount of data!

Just checked my iphone. The stats were cleared on 5th January; since then i've downloaded 218mb and uploaded 26.5mb.
I have 2 hours every weekday on a train where i'm mostly on here or other websites. I regularly run other apps so would be very surprised if she was anywhere near to the limit.

Yup, very similar story here too.

Is this her first month? There's a chance that her phone will have auto-updated its operating system. For instance, I think that most Android phones are still shipping with 2.1, so it'll ask to update to 2.2 as soon as you turn it on. That'll take a bit of data.

 

[snapper_37]

Just an update.

Have looked at the bill online at it seems that up to 10mb of WAP is being used (sometime more) at 00.00 hrs everyday.

Before I tredge through the mud that is Vodafone customer service, has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks