How much data do you actually use?

Telecoms Chat ☎️
#1

30GB for £17 is great, but it’s misleading (to put it lightly). Bundles work because most people don’t use everything, like buffets or “unlimited refills.” This is also why shared plans hardly exist (they wouldn’t let you share a glass among 5, would they?), but that’s for another time… :money_with_wings:

According to CCS Insight, customers used on average 43% of their data bundles in 2017.

So if you’re on a bundle, how much data do you actually use? Also, what’s the allowance, and how much do you pay for it?

I average 14.1GBs out of 30 (since December 2017), paying £25/mo… :grimacing:

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The question of bundles
#2

I use about 17.97 GB of an allowance of unlimited data for £18.00 as I normally use WiFi at home (communal) but it’s sometimes really slow and unreliable, so it’s great to have a backup.

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#3

I am on a 2GB plan but generally only use 0.8-1GB. How on Earth do you two use so much. :open_mouth:

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#4

Aggressively hot-spotting or substituting WiFi. :sweat_smile: My usage will probably drop with Zevvle when I’m paying for every gig…

But the 100GB for £18… :exploding_head:

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#5

Watching movies and YouTube/YouTube Music and Google Play Music that’s about it to be honest.

I one month used 80 plus GB of data but part of that was me experimenting it to see how much I could use if I pushed it to the extreme. That was back when I was on a unlimited everything SIM only plan with the same network provider.

Come to think of it that was the month that my home WiFi was down so I used my phone data exclusively.

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#6

I didn’t think about hotspotting! I’m spoilt for Wi-Fi at the moment, a university town blanketed with Eduroam.

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#7

I’m on 3gb for £7 … I feel like I’m overpaying looking at 100gb for £18!

I seem to use about 1.5GB max because I try and conserve data (tethered Skype, NRK Radio, Chrome and Spotify are up at the top usually).

This month:

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Last month:

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#8

Currently about 40-60GB a month. Purely because in the areas I seem to go for mobile working the connections are so slow that it’s prohibitive. With decent 4G I can work without issue and know I’m going to be productive so I tether.

At the weekend when we are out the kids can easily use 6GB a day tethered to my phone too with their iPads so I realistically need at least 60GB a month allowance to be comfortable.

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#9

Wow, okay. As we’re heading towards something more pay-as-you-go-esque, our pricing at 40GB won’t be competitive… :confused:

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#10

Understood Nick. I know I’m not a typical use case at all and that’s only on my main personal phone anyway.

I currently have 15 other SIMs for an organisation I am a trustee of that use them in radios for data and positioning. They use about 150mb a month each.

Will there be any TOS restrictions on them being used for commercial purposes at all? Not looking for a business style account as it’s all assigned to a person but obviously other networks simply prohibit commercial use.

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#11

Hopefully not but honestly, how would they even tell? A packet is a packet, it doesn’t cost more or less to route because it’s “commercial” (whatever that means).

The only issue I can see is the “unlimited” calling part, but even then, reasonable commercial usage should be fine (and undetectable). Just don’t run a telemarketing spam campaign with it.

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#12

In short, no. Things will be geared around families & friends to start with, and especially with multiple SIMs/account it could work well for businesses. As @Rjevski said – data is data, it costs the same :slight_smile:

Yes, and we’re unsure how best to deal with that. By changing the pricing model it’ll be PAYG calls & texts in the beginning (free Zevvle-to-Zevvle though), but maybe there’s a use case for bundles somewhere…

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#13

Per-minute pricing sounds OK by me, wholesale rates are really cheap anyway (the only issue with most other carriers is that they overcharge sometimes double or triple the wholesale rate) and then there would be no risk of people “abusing” it.

But otherwise “unlimited” with an hour-long call limit and a maximum of 250 unique numbers called per month (after which it becomes chargeable) is a standard practice to allow reasonable usage while preventing abuse.

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#14

I have a 100GB plan, and generally use 20-30GB in a standard month.

However, that can and does shoot up to 70+GB when I’m away from London (and therefore not in a dead zone on the tube and away from fast internet).

I’ve used 10GB so far since the 26th.

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#15

I’m paying £5 per month for 2.25 GB. Generally, I use about 200-500 MB per month, and iD’s data rollover results in 4 GB allowance per month. I might use more if I ever go on a holiday i.e. get out of London. :grinning:

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#16

I’m on 12GB per month for £15 which is a retention deal, though seeing a few similar deals in the January sales. If I’m on holiday for a couple of weeks I’ll get close to getting through it due to the auto upload of photos taken on my phone.

The rest of the time depends a bit on the amount of commuting I’m doing as I work from home, and tether on the way to/from the office. Looking at recent bills, it’s anything 3.5GB to 9GB, with the month I was on holiday for 2 weeks being 11.5GB just under the full allowance. It’s got a bit lower with more working from home.

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#17

I pay £16 per month for 20gb of data and I probably use 6gb at most.

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#18

I pay £7.50/month for 2GB data, but only use around 600MB most months. Sometimes I use a bit over 1GB, but never the full 2GB.

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#19

I had a look back at my giffgaff and SMARTY accounts to see how much data I’ve used each month in the past year. Consistently pretty low, and agrees with my hunch that I’ve been using less and less data over time.

Usage in October is unknown while April was literally about zero.

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Billing. It's a funny thing
#20

I had a look at the EE app on my phone and I cannot find my historic usage.

So I consulted the (PDF) bills. There doesn’t appear to be any usage information whatsoever.

Frustrating.