How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

So here is my situation:

I have wifi at home and at work. Outside of these two there are only a handful of free hotspots. Also, living in Canada means being raped by the telcos left right and center when it comes to charges for data traffic.

This means that while not at home and not at work I can't get email, skype, web and all the other wonderful things without constantly being worried about overage charges.

On my "smart phone plan" with Rogers I currently have only 500MB. So my question is what is 500MB a month (or about 16MB per day) enough for? Can I be constantly on with the weather app, skype (for chat at least) and gps, auto checking my emails every 5 minutes and still remain within 500MB?

Thanks.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

There is some app in one of the repos that keeps track of how much data you are using on 3g. You could download that(not sure which repo it is in. If it is in Testing or Devel please use with care because thing there could cause alot of problems with phone.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Get the personal dataplan monitor widget and try it out for a few days to get a good idea of your usage.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Unless you listen to streaming radios or constantly upload highres pictures to Flickr, I'd say you can: my usage pattern looks very much like yours and I have used 160MB out of 3GB/month on my "3" dataplan.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

500MB should be enough to get mail/Skype. It'll only be a problem if you start streaming audio/video :)

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

lol had the N900 for just under 3 weeks, i should, but haven't used wifi yet, and so far have got 484mb downloads and 80mb uploads :) - wooops, my limit is 500mb! to be fair, i'm using it pretty heavily :)

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

E-mails doesn't use much traffic without pictures.. Skype I don't know about, but I'd say 500 MB a month should do plenty fine.

I just hit 3 GB downloaded the other day, but I've been doing everything over my 3.5G connection. But now the Data Monitor Widget doesn't work anymore :(

It just shows -87172838.000 B downloaded.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

I transferred around 500 mb in 2 weeks but listen to internet radio regularly. I don't have a data limit though.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

@real_per hmm interesting

I've transfered ~1GB in 14 days but that was due to doing like a dozen reflashes in between :)

Not sure how much I'll need after that. But I doubt I'll go to any lesser data plan simply because some things are rather big to install.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

I've used mine excessively for me for three weeks... and managed a total of under 75mb. That's collecting email, reading webpages and mauku .

I don't d/l software unless I'm at home (wifi) and I'm not a huge youtube fan. I'm also naturally cautious, so have been monitoring it. Might use a bit more next month now I feel a bit less scared about it.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

700MB via 3g. I have no real idea, that was from a phonebill.

but I don't need to have an idea, I have a flatrate.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

You non users make us leechers monitor our data usage! :p
Let me explain if you have no idea what I'm talking about :D
Most providers in the Netherlands have a FUP of 10 times the ''average'' use.
Personally I find it hard NOT to stream at least a GB or two. But that's maybe because of streaming radio and TV. :)

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

In the UK, you can'tr *get* mnore than 500mb unless you take out a business contract at megabucks. Over the 500 you start paying by the mb, so we're careful. I've never actually used more than about 10mb in a month beore, so this is 'excessive' for me!

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

I used my 5gb data plan quite extensively with being online all day long at work (we are not allowed to use the company's wifi for our mobile phones) and right now I am sitting at 481mb for 3 weeks.

with extensively I mean: downloaded a few vids with +50mb, had skype/msn available for most of the time, did extensive website browsing just to test everything out.

If I subtract the videos I've downloaded I am sitting at a nice 249mb down and 17mb upstream.

I guess you'll do just fine with 500mb as this is my first month with my new toy, so I'd say the data usage will drop a little after a while

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

That is unbelievably low!
A very rough calculation, is about 4 MB per website (some website use a lot of flash could be problem), that goes to less than 180 website surf in a month, without dl, maps, streaming. Again, a very rough calculation. I would greatly appreciate if you would shed some details about your use in a average day? Even a rough estimate would help.

If it is your privacy and do not want to answer, I can understand that. I am also shopping for a monthly cap per month internet use. TIA,

Edit: I could be totally off, reading rapante's post above me, he is 'all day use' with streaming and dl is only 481MB in 3 weeks. May be visiting the same web site/cache kicks in, so it is not a straight addition business?

bun

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Just because your phone has a proper browser, doesn't stop you using the mobile versions of their sites, such as the BBC, which have much smaller page sizes.

I used to get through about ten or 20 meg a month on my P990, web browsing, and a little bit of email, so expect the 500 gig allowance to last well, esp. as I switch to wifi at home.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Oh. Wow...Considering my PC streams my TV channels at 112KByte/s I'd go through that in 76 minutes!

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

my n900 has been in service for 2 weeks.... and I had it errr... exactly 2 weeks. so I quess that it could be 300-500mb for n900 and the rest for my e71. and with n900 there was a huge difference wlan vs 3g so i used wlan @ home. with e71 there was no use using wlan because the speed was about the same anyway.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

In one month, I've used 10 MB on EDGE, upload and download combined.

As you might guess, I'm almost always on WiFi.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

... *having a major flip out* ... um, I've had my phone a week ... and I've used 468.2MB of my 500MB fair usage from this month ... I'm rarely able to connect to a wifi network (have a Vodafone 3GB dongle for my computer) and am pretty much tied to 3G ... how on earth can they possibly think that 500MB is enough for "unlimited" fair usage in a month ... I'd be happy with a big reduction in my free minutes, but vodafone only have one dataplan so I'm stuck with their idea of fair usage, not my idea of what I need ...

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Yes you can very well be constantly on your app, but avoid auto checking whether its a mail or any other thing.. sometimes this might overload your usage.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

i think you can stay within 500MB while using wifi when you can. I went over 1.1GB this month but never used wifi but ido literally everything on the phone

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

I've used about

37.457 MB Up
132.257 MB Down

This is from when I got the N900, Dec 1st, to today.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

That 500MB is probably good for a day or so... :D

It all depends on what you do. Internet radio, constant chatting, and reading email (with attachment files) can consume pretty hefty amounts of data transferred.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

... Any ideas why Vodafone think I've used 536.3MB while my phone thinks I've uploaded 27.6MB and downloaded 94.6MB? ... I haven't reset the counters on the phone or anything silly like that ... so where is this discrepency coming from?

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Don't you guys use your phones? According to my carrier I am at 14040 MB in 18 days.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

I would love to have a carrier allow me to do that much. In canada it is too expensive ($25CDN a month for 500GB from the only GSM provider). I am hoping our new entrant will resolve that, but they need to expand their network first for me to switch.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Swith to a different provider as soon as you can. They're not all capped at 500GB.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Please report the Data Monitor Widget bug on bugs.maemo.org. Cheers :-)

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

About 500 MB in 10 days, though I've used wifi when I've installed more software.. No data limits here.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

No sense of paying more your carrier, they're doing well enough anyway.
Get a router at home.
Search for wlan in the city, it's full of them.

I have 200MB monthly and the phone for about 10 days, so far 26dn/2.6up

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Almost 1 month of usage now and on 845mb download, and 135 up :) - not too bad, as i always use the 3g connection :)

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

mobile dataplans are outrageously expensive in Germany, so at the moment I'm stuck with 200MB/month. One can get by with this, but for me fun starts at something like 15GB/month...

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

About a month of use now. Mainly use WiFi so less than a lot of people. Currently on 174MB Up and 253MB down so I must be a light user! LOL.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

You mean 500MB - I live in Canada, no provider gives you more than 5GB for a flat fee. 500MB is more typical.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

pease let this be so.... being australian i almost cried when i read 500gb. in australia you are doing well to get over 200mb of data included on your phone!

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

dont be such a crybaby. you got steve irwin and kangaroos

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Whoops, yea you are right. Sorry for the typo.

I dont think anyone would complain with 500GB.

Re: How many MB does an "average" user use a month for data traffic?
 

Well, now they have kangaroos.