I rarely use over 2GB of data per month. Usually most of my data traffic happens over wifi. Curious.

If you want to know why I’m asking:

My phone provider just decided to upgrade my subscription plan some ridiculous amount. I was on a cheap prepaid 18GB every 28 days plan, with data rollover. (I got nearly 900 GB of rollover data just sitting there, accumulated over the years).

Now they increased both their price and data cap about +60%. For me this is absolutely unnecessary. I was already paying for more than what I used.

Then I tried to switch providers, and realized this is the new baseline in the country, at least for monthly prepaid. Eventually I found a few providers that offer something more affordable, but it’s only long expiry plans with a lot less data. Works for me though, not complaining.

I’m just surprised with the sheer amounts in most monthly plans, am I some kind of low usage freak?

  • Libb@piefed.social
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    10 days ago

    More or less 0. Just like I don’t use my phone much, I seldom use any data. I don’t watch/listen to content on my phone, I don’t take much photos. I don’t even check my emails.

    I just checked on their website, for January I’m sitting at an impressive 360 megs (130 giga available monthly) but this month is a massive increase in my usual data consumption as I’ve taken a lot more pictures than I use to (we’re visiting new apartments).

    I pay 12€/m each for both my spouse and mine (each with a 130g plan that we never use, it’s the smallest plan we could get), plus 2€/m for a third line that has no data plan at all (that we use as a ‘trash/publicly shared number’ we almost never answer). This cheap plan could suit us if it wasn’t that limited when moving abroad (the reason why I pay for those 130g plans we don’t use is they don’t have those limits) and if it had some data associated to it for those rare times when we need it, like it just happened this month. Those plans are all without engagement (and we provide our own phones)

    Here in France, customers need to regularly check their invoice to make sure the operator has not silently activated a new ‘feature’ free ‘for the first month’ that automatically switch to the paid tier the following month. Without the customer asking anything. It happens very often. And it can quickly ad up.

  • sarmale@lemmy.zip
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    10 days ago

    Romania, currently paying 2€ / month for 75GB, never had to worry, didn’t even knew the cap until now - I thought it was unlimited. At most I used 20GB / month which to be honest surprised me a bit.

    Pretty happy with Digi

    • beegnyoshi@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      About Digi, here in Portugal it’s a bit iffy. Sometimes calls don’t arrive, mobile data doesn’t work in the subway, along with some other nitpicks, but it’s definitely gotten better since I started using it. I get unlimited data for fairly cheap which is cool.

      It’s not like I need to be connected to the internet at all times, so my biggest peeve is definitely the fact that for some ungodly reason whenever I stop getting mobile data I need to fully reboot my phone to get it back again. Turning mobile data on and off, or setting airplane mode on and off doesn’t work for some reason.

      But something to take into account is that (and this is purely anecdotal) coincidentally the moment I started using digi, I started getting spam calls en masse, specifically from Iberdrola. Most of the time once a day, but at some point it reached multiple times a day. I never answered, but would search the number online and see that it was spam. Though it could very much have been a coincidence, it still makes digi feel a bit sus to me. Rarely do I ever use it without a vpn.

  • BurgerBaron@piefed.social
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    10 days ago

    My career is a lot of sitting around idle time babysitting machines so I do actually use my mobile data. Usually 20-30GB usage unless I feel like binging a show. 80GB cap. So, if I do that it’s 480p rips on Stremio.

  • My operator gives me 150gb for 7.99€. It actually started with 30gb for the same price but they’ve been upgrading my gb almost yearly without price increase.

    As I stream music from my jellyfin server for around 6-8 hours a day (most of my office time) and watch some shows on my lunch time, my monthly consumption is around 60-70gb a month.

    But simply because I know I have more than enough to not worry about the streaming quality of my files, otherwise I’d be at maybe 10 or so.

      • Kristell@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol
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        10 days ago

        Yeah… I actually sat down and listened to a more recent album on FLAC and 128kbps MP3 and realized I had no idea which was which, so I figured that either my speakers, or my ears weren’t HD enough to be worth the storage space xD Switched my entire library to MP3 after that

      • I work for a somewhat big company with one of the dumbest IT depts ever. On top of not wanting to risk being spied on what I do or not do with my private phone and life, there’s also the fact that their rules for a “safe browsing” are really, REALLY stupid (like blocking access to Siemens website because they use “weird” protocols to transfer files for their devices firmware or their webinars: p2p).

        I find more often than not having to do a hotspot with my phone so I can connect with my computer to simply access work related websites because IT is just too dumb to understand that in a company there should be different network profiles depending on the worker and, instead, they apply a general rule in which they consider the same “threats” for a marketing employee than for an OT (operational technologies) employee.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    10 days ago

    My actual phone doesn’t have data, my home internet uses mobile data though as I have a 4G router. That is averaging about 4TB/year, or 333GB/month, I pay £24/month for unlimited data on that.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    10 days ago

    I suspect that it wildly varies based on user.

    If you use video streaming from, say, YouTube and TikTok heavily, and you do so outside of WiFi networks, I bet that you can burn through a lot of data pretty quickly.

    Another user could be sitting on Lemmy or whatever all day every day and just not use much data.

    • Mothra@mander.xyzOP
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      10 days ago

      Of course, I’m just surprised there is practically no market for low usage people.

  • Kristell@herbicide.fallcounty.omg.lol
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    10 days ago

    According to my device:

    • September: 30mb
    • October: 153mb
    • November: 652mb
    • December: 889mb

    Not sure why September was so low, but I’m not surprised it’s <1gb/mo. I didn’t really have unlimited data until a couple of years ago, and I don’t really sit around watching videos out of the house. It’s mostly music, which my music is all downloaded on my phone anyway.

    The spike in November is because I moved. I started walking to the store, and the internet here is less consistent, so I’m using my data more.

  • quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 days ago

    At home I use my home internet so I don’t use the phone’s data there and I don’t track it at all.

    Outside my house. I noticed that I doubled my data usage since joining Lemmy, from 3-4GB per month to 6-7GB. I suspect that this is mosly because the app I’m using doesn’t seem to hold much on cache, every time I’m scrolling back up it’s all loading icons.

  • Pope-King Joe@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    According to my carrier, I use an average of 17GB. Work WiFi isn’t always reliable so sometimes I just let loose. I pay $25 monthly for unlimited, so it’s not like I have to worry about it.

  • cdzero@lemmy.ml
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    10 days ago

    I’m sitting on around 4.5gb with a third of the cycle to go. That’s high for me, would be under 1gb if I wasn’t watching the cricket for a bit on Boxing Day.

    I’m mostly on the network at home or playing music from the memory card so don’t need much at all, but 20gb is the lowest available with my provider.

    • Mothra@mander.xyzOP
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      10 days ago

      Similar case as mine, and yes I’m also disappointed there isn’t a lower option available