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carl2591's avatar
carl2591
Explorer III
Aug 02, 2015

data Usage for full timers using wireless internet service.

So i was tying to get a handle on how much data the average fulltimer is using. I know on my regular cell phone I can go through close to 1 gig a month with just little usage when not on wifi or laptop.

i know it not possible to stream movies but I wanted to see how much is used for like email, checking or making RV sites to stay etc. i was looking at cost on verizon and see like 16 gig runs close to 100 bucks a month.

thanks
  • We used to use about 3-5 gig per month but now find that we are more comfortable with a 10 gig plan. We were always watching our data usage every day, now we just receive texts when we are at 50%, 75% and 90% used. Normally using between 6 - 7 gigs now. We disable the automatic Windows updates and only load those either on wifi or if we are near the end of the month with low usage.
  • carl2591 wrote:
    i know it not possible to stream movies but I wanted to see how much is used for like email, checking or making RV sites to stay etc.
    Not possible? You mean on YOUR phone?
  • 16 GB for $100? Bargain!!

    We do the pay-as-you-go JetPack (Verizon) plan and for $90 you get 10 GB. (The upside is that when we're not traveling we don't use it and pay nothing.)

    It's for mail, billpay, web surfing, trip planning and the like. Huge computer updates wait 'til we get to a library wi-fi. We've never gone over 10GB in a month. Usually at the end of the cycle we have a couple GB left to stream until it runs out.
  • We used 5 GB while full-timing. We don't do any streaming of movies, etc.
  • As we finish our first year of full-timing, we are finding you cannot depend on any bandwidth at most RV parks, even though you may get great signal strength. We have a 25 GB plan and use our hot spot where we cannot get enough throughput. We've been in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota the past 4 weeks and have almost exclusively used our hotspot. When we were in the southern and eastern US earlier this year that was not the case and we didn't use as much. We went 1G over our plan this past month. BTW, we haven't downloaded any movies, so if you do that you may be in trouble....