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4G questions

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10.28.2011 3:32pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

I recently got a smart phone and had some questions about how the data situation works. Since there aren't unlimited plans with the major carriers anymore, my plan gives me 2Gb/month. How easy is it to use 2GB in one month on a cell phone? I don't plan on doing any heavy things like video streaming or anything, just email/facebook and whatnot. I assume if I'm in range of a wireless network, any internet activity I do will go through wifi as opposed to 4G and not count towards my limit? If I'm outside of a wireless network is there a way to turn off 4G capability? I'm not sure if having my social networks and email accounts connected at all times is going to drain my usage. Thank you.

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10.28.2011 3:41pm

CaButler
Winter Knight of the Unseelie Court

Cell technical support, at your service:

Depending on what kind of activity you do, you can blow through 2 gigs pretty easily, but that is very dependent on your carrier and how well their compression is. if you plan mostly to do a lot of email, then it'd be very difficult to break that mark. Facebook, on the other hand, can burn a lot of it, especially when you're clicking on various links and opening up posts to read comments. Again, it depends on your carrier's compression capabilities.

As for automatically getting on a wi-fi network, that again depends on the carrier. I can tell you with certinty that any AT&T device will automatically connect to any AT&T wifi location, as the phones are built to recognize it. As a result, any data that will pass while connected to the wi-fi will not count towards your data usage plan. Any other wi-fi network will need to be remembered on the phone in order to connect automatically, so you will have to connect to it manually at least once (as in, choose to connect to it).

As for turning off 4G capability, that depends on the device. Some devices do allow you to turn off the higher end network to go to a lower speed. This is mostly to conserve battery, not data usage, as that will be the same no matter what data network you connect to. If you feel uncomfortable about constant notifications, you can adjust your settings so that you'll receive email/facebook notifications at timely intervals or when you choose to look them up.

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10.28.2011 4:08pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

About the wifi, I'm not worried about the device automatically recognizing and connecting to it, just the fact that while I'm connected, I'm not actively wasting data through 4G. For instance, when I'm at my home, I connected to my personal wifi connection but I noticed the 4G symbol remaining in my notification bar. Any internet related activity I do passes only through the wifi, correct?

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10.28.2011 4:24pm

Clowd Cole
Dangerous Zombie

Everthing but MMS, those rely on the carriers network, but also dont go aginst your 2GB.

Alos if you have an android device (I assume you do) you probably can find an app that will turn the 4G off.

Buggle Up! Danger! Danger! (Genocide!) Death the Crisis! Dangerous Zombie!

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10.28.2011 4:27pm

CaButler
Winter Knight of the Unseelie Court

noclist said:

About the wifi, I'm not worried about the device automatically recognizing and connecting to it, just the fact that while I'm connected, I'm not actively wasting data through 4G. For instance, when I'm at my home, I connected to my personal wifi connection but I noticed the 4G symbol remaining in my notification bar. Any internet related activity I do passes only through the wifi, correct?

Depends on the phone. An iPhone will only show a wi-fi indicator where the 3G/4G would be. It may be different on other phones, but the wi-fi signal will be present if it's connected to the wi-fi network. If it isn't, then it either hasn't connected to the wi-fi network yet or there's no connection, in which case you'll be burning data through the data network, using up your usage.

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10.28.2011 4:33pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

I have a Motorola Atrix 2, which displays a wifi symbol next to the 4G symbol when I'm connected to a wireless network. I think it's safe to say that 4G probably isn't being accessed.

Is there a way to completely disable internet access from the phone if I wish to at times? Like if I'm at work, I don't have a wireless network available and I don't really need email and notifications coming in as I have a computer in front of me so if I could just disable connectivity to save data and then enable it later on that would be great.

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10.28.2011 4:37pm

Clowd Cole
Dangerous Zombie

Yes there is.

Menu, Setting, Wireless and Network, Mobile Networks, then turn off Data Enabled.

Also you can download a app that will let you have a widget to turn it off and on.

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10.28.2011 4:44pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

Hm I'm not seeing that option in Mobile Network Settings. I have Select Network, Operator Selection and Access point names.

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10.28.2011 4:49pm

Clowd Cole
Dangerous Zombie

Then I would go the app way.

Serch for "data switch", you can create a widget on the home screen for quick access.

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10.28.2011 5:03pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

Great, I already found one, thanks for the info

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10.28.2011 6:28pm

Kellios
Yikes and away!

I also have the 2gig plan and I've never once gone over. Most of the networking things I do are what you do - email, check facebook, occasionally use the browser and often stream music (pandora in the car FTW). I've only come close to the cap once; and that was when I was streaming music all day and it was my only source of internet for a few weeks.

I also usually keep mine connected to a wifi whenever I can, but if you're not using your phone to stream a shitload of videos/pictures/whathaveyou and have access to wifi, you should be fine.

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10.28.2011 7:53pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

Cool, honestly most of the internet connectivity I will be doing is going to involve widgets instead of an actual webpage, I don't know if that reduces the size of the downloads coming to the phone or not. I'm finding this Data Switch app recommended by Clowd to be very handy.

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10.28.2011 9:03pm

Amer
pew pew pew

I've got a Samsung Infuse on AT&T running Android that I just got on the 15th with a 2gb data plan.

I can turn off data transfers just by holding down the power button. It brings up a menu that lets me turn off data or I can put it in airplane mode, along with a couple other options.

It also comes with a widget that allows me to turn on/off wifi, sync, gps, etc. individually. Also if you pull down the notifications menu, similiar options are available for wifi, bluetooth, gps, silent mode, no screen roation.

In the almost two weeks that I've had the phone, I've used 411mb of data. At home, I have it connect to my wifi. I really use wifi whenever I can, obviously. Usually I just leave data transfer turned off, as I'm usually sitting at a computer all day. When I have it on, I usually have sync turned off unless I know I'm going to be away from a computer for a while, so that I can get emails. This also includes 3 or 4 pandora sessions, where I've noticed the phone uses about 23-26mb an hour just playing on normal quality audio. The usage data is available on ATT's website if you create an account, and I've also downloaded a data tracking app called Onavo that seems pretty useful, except it attritubets alot of stuff to the android OS instead of say, pandora, but it at least gives you overall usage numbers for the month, day, etc.

I have friends who say they listen to pandora for 8 hours a day at work, 5 days a week, on high quality, and don't go over 2 gb for all phone usage. All of these friends either have unlimtied plans from T-mobile or were grandfathered into unlimited from previous AT&T data plans. I don't see how this is mathmatically possible. So they are either lying to me, or their data usage gets magic'ed somewhere along the way. 2gb a month gives you about 66mb a day to play with. With Pandora, you can easily use this up in 2 and a half to 3 hours.

AT&T sends you texts when you've used 50%, 80%, 90%, and 100% of your data plan. I wouldn't trust these as AT&T doesn't seem to update your usage in real time. The Onavo app does, and it gives you the option to automatically turn off data usage once you've reached a configurable precentage threshold.

Oh, it's also important to note that by default, android will not connect to an open wi-fi connection unless you look at the notification and choose to connect to the connection. My phone auto-connects to AT&T hotspots, but not your normal open wi-fi you find at like, Subway or Qdoba or wherever. This means unless you manually connect to it, you will be using data. Not sure if you can change this option to auto-connect to open wifi, since I don't really want it to do that. However, once you do connect to that network, everytime you come in contact with it again it will automatically connect.

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10.28.2011 9:59pm

Thread Creator

noclist
Chalky Studebaker

Nice, I don't really use Pandora too often so I'm not worried about that. Does airplane mode simply turn off 4G and wireless access? I have this option but I'm not familiar with it.

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10.29.2011 2:59am

amaron
No answer, must be that deaf bitch.

I have a T-Mobile G2 and a 2 gb plan as well.

Don't bother with Netflix (if you had an account, that is). It will ravage your data usage.

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