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Question about data usage

LSUtigers03

LSUtigers03

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Apr 9, 2008
2,089
41
I've never really gone above 500mb in a month. Right now I'm at 1.5gb for the month. It's not from tethering its from streaming pandora during most of my workday and downloading some movies with the safari download plugin. Will they say anything about the big jump in usage or do they not say anything until you go over 5gb? I'm wondering if they'll assume that the jump was due to tethering.
 
I seriously doubt you have anything to worry about. FYI, the "soft caps" people talk about on here have never been shown to apply to the iPhone. I've looked and asked. No links to anything from AT&T. Also, you can read the TOS, which says nothing in that regard. The 5 GB refers to tethering/air card limits only. However, I do think there is a clause in the TOS which pretty much allows AT&T to do whatever they want. The problem is that they say unlimited for the iPhone, as long as it's on the data plan, so they'd have a hard time in court if they tried to do something to limit you.
 
LSUtigers03 said:
I've never really gone above 500mb in a month. Right now I'm at 1.5gb for the month. It's not from tethering its from streaming pandora during most of my workday and downloading some movies with the safari download plugin. Will they say anything about the big jump in usage or do they not say anything until you go over 5gb? I'm wondering if they'll assume that the jump was due to tethering.
Click to expand...

The iPhone's data plan has always been truly unlimited. The soft caps people go around yapping are the ones that apply to AT&T Data Connect cards (USB Air Card tethering) and BlackBerry/Windows Mobile tether plans.

So it doesn't matter how much you use it, you'll be fine.
 
When AT&T rolls out the official tethering later this year, would it be plausible to use this as a primary connection? I don't know what my 3G speed will be at my new house, but I'm getting 2.5ish speeds here right now. I would have problems using any accessories like an Apple TV (don't own one), Netflix streaming on my BD player (do own one) or Wii (also own), but for the most part I'm Web browsing and downloading music from iTunes.

So will this 5GB/month cap apply to said $30/month official tethering? This wouldn't necessarily save me money (AT&T has a $20 DSL plan for 768kbps), but it would obviously be faster than that deal.
 
Michael CM1 said:
When AT&T rolls out the official tethering later this year, would it be plausible to use this as a primary connection? I don't know what my 3G speed will be at my new house, but I'm getting 2.5ish speeds here right now. I would have problems using any accessories like an Apple TV (don't own one), Netflix streaming on my BD player (do own one) or Wii (also own), but for the most part I'm Web browsing and downloading music from iTunes.

So will this 5GB/month cap apply to said $30/month official tethering? This wouldn't necessarily save me money (AT&T has a $20 DSL plan for 768kbps), but it would obviously be faster than that deal.
Click to expand...

Yes it would be faster; however, it will not be worth it for you. The 5GB cap limit can easily be broken with more or less 4 movies. So I would not recommend it to you. In fact, anyone trying to replace their home internet connection with an AT&T tethering plan or Air Card, I would highly advise against it. 5GB's can easily be blown thru in less than a week of normal usage.

Those tethering options are for people on the go, who have a home connection and use the AT&T connection as an on-the-go, and emergency or back-up kind of thing. It also is great for the business man who needs email contact 24/7.
 
I'm up to 7GB so far this month. I don't think they care. Even if they say something, it says UNLIMITED.
 
me wife has been listening to the radio solid 7/8 hrs a day for the last 2 months since she discovered wunderradio, in 2 months she's totted up 40gb usage, i nrlly passed out when i saw her stats, mine in the same amount of time was only 1.2gb.
 
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