Power up Your Mobile Device with a Data Plan

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:06:48 GMT

What’s the big deal about having a data plan?

Surf the Web. Read and send e-mail. Check the weather and latest sports scores. Search for your favorite restaurant—all from your cell phone. Now that’s cool. Mobile versions of your favorite services make it fast, easy and convenient to get things done. And having a data plan helps get you all the information you want, when you want it—without breaking your bank account.

What kinds of data plans are available?

The tough part of getting a data plan is figuring out what type and size you need, so you don’t end up wasting money. Data plans come in all sizes and price points, just like regular cell phone plans. Check your mobile carrier’s web site to find out more about what they offer, and how they charge for their data plans. Some offer “all you can use” plans, plans based on the number of minutes used, or the amount of data used by your phone (such as file size that is sent to your phone).

Advantages of paying by minutes—some mobile carriers allow data usage to be part of unlimited evening/weekend minutes. If your plan allows you rollover minutes, or if you have a sufficient cushion of minutes in your existing plan, you may not need to commit to an extra plan.

Advantages of paying by megabytes—if you spend 20 minutes reading an article, you only pay for the data consumed, not the minutes spent. Additionally, a number of mobile carriers are starting to offer unlimited usage megabyte plans on their networks. On such plans, they provide you an unlimited amount of data usage for one monthly fixed fee, often for a low monthly rate.

Get the data plan that works for you

Figuring out the best data plan for you based on your usage and budget is akin to shopping for the right gear for your favorite sport. Everyday sneakers will get you around town in style and comfort, but you will probably want to invest in great-fitting athletic shoes for performance sports. Same goes for your data plan.

How often do you read your e-mail on your phone, or conduct a local or Web search? For instance, how many e-mails can you read with a 1 MB plan? To view one e-mail using Windows Live Mail for Mobile you will use up approximately 25 kb of data. That’s 17kb to open the inbox view and another 8kb to open an average-size e-mail. Doing the math, factoring in that one megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes, and then you should be able to read nearly 40 e-mails (if you read only about one email every time you access your inbox), or up to 90 emails (if you read about 5 emails every time you access your inbox) on a 1MB plan, at an estimated cost ranging from $10-20 a month.

How many searches can you execute before you exceed 1MB? Well, if you want to find the closest coffee shop using the Windows Live Local Search, you’ll use up about 29kb of data. That’s 4kb to open the Local Search page, 6kb to get to the results page, 9kb to view details of the location (which includes a map), and 10kb to view detailed driving directions. That means you can do about 35 searches for 1MB (more if you don’t always need a map but rather just the phone #), at an estimated cost ranging from $10-20 a month. Ask your carrier for more details on the various bundled packages of voice and data plans that they offer

So if you purchase a 1MB data plan assuming that on average you view 5 e-mails every time you go to the mailbox, you’ll be able to read about between 90 e-mails, or find about 35 locations, including driving directions to each of the locations. Of course these numbers can vary, depending on your browser. Some browsers are better in caching content and the above numbers can be slightly better (you'll be able to get more out of your 1MB data plan) and some browsers don't do as good job caching, and the numbers above can be slightly worse (you'll be able to get less out of your 1MB data plan).

TIP to save money: If you are on a limited data plan – you can conserve by disabling the icons in Windows Live Mail and thus allowing for less data needing to be transferred back and forth –this will save you on time it takes to display the browser page on your phone and the data used.

[Originally published on February 7, 2006]

It's all mobile: Access

Power up Your Mobile Device with a Data Plan