Time to handle the music.
These companies are here to create money. That is priority numero uno. Good customer support, good prices, and good plans only exist to show a profit.
Companies used to provide unlimited plans until they weren't making just as much (read: we downloaded too much). more info led the industries to generate the popular structure of:
Basic Plans - 50 Megabytes (MB) or less
'Average' Plans - 5 Gigabytes (GB)AC
Unlimited Plans
Okay, most people get what unlimited means, but what the heck is 50 MB or 5 GB?
It's not like cell phone companies where you can count minutes. We realize what minutes are. Most of us read the time, all the time!
Tell someone you'll be there in 5 minutes plus they get that. Tell 'em you're exceeding your usage cap within the next 10 Megabytes and expect the "lost in space" look.
Today we will demystify all the jargon. I'll walk you through:
You skill with 50 MB of data
You skill with 5 GB of data
Everything you can't do with unlimited data
How to pick brilliantly select a plan to avoid the fret of using an excessive amount of bandwidth.
Basic Plans
They are well, pretty basic. If you're not careful, you'll blaze through the 50 MB faster than Michael Phelps in water at the Olympics. It's not a lot. Does that mean not to get it? Not necessarily.
An efficiency plan can work if you only check email or see the web. Large files become questionable. Definitely look out for windows update. Some updates can be 100 MB or more. Very last thing you need would be to get slapped with a gazillion dollar bill and all you did was restart your computer. Thanks Microsoft!
Downloading movies or music is just out the question. The common album is approximately 80 MB while movies are 700 MB at best. Of course, this leads us to elusive questions like "What is the meaning of life?" and...
"Man, so what can 50 MB get me?"
Nielsen-netratings.com says the average U.S. websurfer loads 1,500+ web pages per month. Popular webpages could be junked up with ads so each one accounts for 100-200KB of data downloaded.
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- CNN.com is 93kb while Google is really a mere 6 kb -
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This means that on average, a typical user will download over 20MB of data just doing 'routine' web surfing. That however, doesn't include email you might download using desktop clients like Outlook.
The issue isn't so much the email here, but spam. If possible, stay away from using Outlook to download all your email. Try a web-based email service like Gmail or Yahoo. This way, if you do get spam, it's in a folder you don't download (read: you pay for it).
Here's a table that summarizes what we've discussed so far:
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Activity/Download | File Size | # of times before you hit 50 MB
1 email | 10 KB | 5,000
1 webpage visit to CNN | ~100 KB | 512
1 downloaded song from iTunes | 4 MB | 13
1 typical 3 minute video on YouTube/Google | 5 MB | 10
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So, just need email? Then you can get a basic plan. Or even, then maybe you need to consider:
5 Gigabyte Plans
I'll give it for you straight. A 5 GB plan will cover most people's needs. It is not for power users. Now, how can you figure out if you're regular or a power user? Ask yourself these questions:
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Questions | Average User | Power User
Use the internet more than 3 hrs/day? | No | Yes
Will an aircard be your main connection? | No | Yes
Can you download movies or music regularly? | No | Yes
Do you stream movies/music regularly? | No | Yes
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Answered yes to more than 1 of the questions? Then you're probably an electrical user and should check out an unlimited plan. Uncertain? Take a look at:
What can 5 Gigabytes get me?
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Activity/Download | QUALITY | # of times before you hit 50 MB
1 email | 10 KB | 500,000 times
1 webpage visit to CNN.com | 100 KB | 5,242 times
1 downloaded song from iTunes | 4 MB | 1,250 times
1 typical 3 minute video on YouTube/Google | 5 MB | 1,000 times
1 hour of 56k audio stream | 25 MB | 200 hrs
1 typical 5 minute video on iTunes | 30 MB | 167 times
1 hour of video stream or 2-way video chat | 52 MB | 97 hrs
1 typical 45-minute Television show from iTunes | 200 MB | 25 times
1 Full-length (2 hours) movie download | 1.5 GB | three times
1 entire DVD disk image | 4.5 GB | 1 time
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Unlimited Plans
Just the truth that you're reading this part probably means you might need this plan.
Whether you're on the run from airport to airport, building webpages or downloading movies and music, you stay connected. You're an electrical user through and through.
Mobile Broadband providers may tremble at the reference to your name. Nothing else but unlimited will suffice. In the event that's you, there are only a handful of carriers that provide unlimited mobile broadband. Start to see the end of the article for to purchase them.
While the plan may be unlimited, 'prohibited' uses will get you banned by your provider. Those include:
Always on connections such as P2P, BitTorrent, server devices
Spam
Auto-responders that generate 'excessive' traffic
Any form of hacking
Think of it in this manner. They just don't want one to suck up all the internet for yourself as an industrial vacuum. Though it might be fun, it'd be selfish. Besides that, you should be fine.
So, to recap on what we covered:
Basic plans are great for just browsing the web and checking email
Average (or 5 GB) plans work very well for most people
Unlimited plans are for power users who make an online search 'intensively'
Avoid mobile broadband for 'questionable' activities (Should you choose, I 'didn't see no thin!')
Now you know what each plan will get you. Heck, you probably already know which one you'll get.
Hold up though.
What if you obtain it and it's not working out for you personally? Or, You've already got it and you realized that it is not for you? It'd really bite to be stuck for just two 2 years spending money on something you don't like.
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