I've had an air card (or more correctly, cellular modem) for a year now. Generally, you are limited to 5 Gig a month for a flat rate. So, the question is...... how fast do you use up 5 Gig? Here is my experience. If all you do is surf the net and read email, every day, and nothing else, you won't exceed even ONE gig. Or, you may get to barely over 1 Gig. The "hogs" are downloading movies, and streaming music. When I camp hosted last year, I was at a place with no TV reception. I HAD to watch "24." So, I downloaded it. A "one hour" episode downloaded will use up 400 meg. Recently, I started streaming music on Pandora (there is another one called Rhapsody). I discovered that one hour of streaming music, every day, uses up 100 meg EACH DAY. So far, the most I have used up is 2 GIG in a month (when I streamed music), but I generally average 900 meg a month, usually never exceed 1 GIG. I know most of the RV parks have WiFi. If you can live with that, fine, and then there is the occasional one or two days where you boondock and live without it, or stay somewhere cheap and live without it. But if you want to get a cellular modem, that's my experience, yours may be different. JJ
Hi JJ, That's good information to have. Be aware that there is some "overhead" that doesn't show up--until the bill arrives. My usual usage with no extraordinary downloads averages 7.5 gigs per month. Fortunately, in Canada, I have an unlimited Cellular Modem account. Unfortunately that turns into $3.00 per meg as soon as I cross the USA border
My Verizon modem has a way to "check" every day how much has been used up so far. I just remember what it was the previous day and when I check the next morning, it's like, "ok, I used up 100 meg doing THAT thing......." JJ
On the forums devoted to this subject, the most common usage reported is 1-2 GB per month. I didn't realize that a one-hour TV show consumed 400 MB. No wonder some folks are hobbled by the 5 GB monthly limit that the carriers impose!
We don't download a lot but we both leave our computers online pretty much all the time. Hubby writes websites and does web hosting. I sit in the office of our CG (we are managers) and it is boring so I take my laptop with me and play on it all the time. We use between 5-6 gigs a month even with all that online time.
I'm in the 30 day trial period for my cell system. It's a Mi-Fi card. I'm online several hours a day, but don't download many large files and am not even close to the 5GB. But if my math isn't fuzzy, then I calculate one could only do about 12-13 hour long tv shows at 400mb each and half that for a movie.
Hi Lonesoldier, 1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes 1 gigabyte = 1000 megabytes a mifi is a wireless router that allows a connection to the internet using cell phone frequencies and allows a laptop or other device to connect to it. I use about 7.5 gigabytes in a typical month. I hope this helps. QUOTE(Lonesoldier @ Feb 8 2010, 08:34 PM) [snapback]20913[/snapback] For the technicly handicapped, of the older generation, explain meg, gig, mi-fi. :blink: PLEASE
Thanks for asking Lonesoldier. As a US schooled boomer, educated in the era of Fortran, I am very glad there are pianotuna's out there who can keep me on the right path: kilo to mega to giga. Is there a next level: 1000 gigabytes = ?
QUOTE(FosterImposters @ Feb 9 2010, 12:09 AM) [snapback]20915[/snapback] Thanks for asking Lonesoldier. As a US schooled boomer, educated in the era of Fortran, I am very glad there are pianotuna's out there who can keep me on the right path: kilo to mega to giga. Is there a next level: 1000 gigabytes = ? terabyte
1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte 1000 kilobytes = 1 Megabyte 1000 Megabytges = 1 Gigabyte 1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte 1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte 1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte 1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte 1000 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte My digital camera takes a 10 million pixel (megapixel) picture which requires an average of 2.04 Mb of storage space. This means that on a a 5 Gb download limit would cut you off after you downloaded 2451 pictures of exactly this size. However, nothing on the Web is linear or consistent. Sometimes an image is much smaller, sometimes much larger. Text actually takes up memory (although not much), and things like Flash, Quicktime, etc... can become memory hogs, especially if they're programmed poorly, which will eat into your download limits. But watching television programs and/or movies will quickly use up a 5 Gb limit. Just adding a little more geekery to the thread! JT3
Lets tune it up a bit. 1 Megabyte is 1024 KB's 1 Gigabyte is 1,048,576 KB's 1 Terabyte is 1,073,741,824 KB's 1 Petabyte is 1,099,511,627,776 KB's What is next a Commodore 64?
QUOTE(FosterImposters @ Feb 8 2010, 09:09 PM) [snapback]20915[/snapback] Thanks for asking Lonesoldier. As a US schooled boomer, educated in the era of Fortran, .... Hey, I'm right there with you. How about Basic and Cobol. I once owned a Sinclair 1000. Oh man I'm old!!!
The hard drive on my first Epson computer was a microcassette tape. Took 2 1/2 minutes for reel to real for 10 K. I thought I was in heaven. I wrote a 16 K program in Basic and had to run it at work. I got a Tandy handheld and had to input it all with the keyboard. I have a 160 gig hard drive now and think it is too small.
I bought a Verizon Card last year just to test it out as compared to my satellite system. If I am going to You tube, news pages, or down loading music I can burn thru 5 gig in a month easily. Thats part of the reason I am trying it. With my Satellite system I am allow 250 megs a day in downloads and when I am doing all of the above I go thru 250 megs easily and get locked out of the net for 24 hours there after. It does not take a lot of news or you tubes to make 250 megs. As for downloading anything larger than the 250 we have to go use the net between 2 and 5 am. Other wise we have to use the verizon card.
I usually use 2.5 to 3 GB a month on my Verizon Air Card. I don't download movies, but do watch a lot of YouTube videos, download a program now and then, and surf a lot. Only one month in over three years did I come close to 5 GB.
March was the first month I "held my breath" on my air card. I was camp hosting the entire month. When I was in Kentucky last summer for two months, I never exceeded 1 gig per month, all I did was email and net surfing. Didn't do TV shows or music streaming. However, during March, I was in a place with no TV reception. So, I HAD to watch "24." Hey, it's the last season! Gotta watch Jack! Well, between streaming "24" every Tuesday morning (three "one hour" episodes and one "two hour" episode) and streaming music (one of my friends got me hooked on this) every day, I still stayed UNDER the 5 gig limit, but BARELY! Limit is 5 gig, I used 4.8 gig. Glad I'm a "Solo." If I would have had someone else sharing the air card with me (like a spouse or whatever) would not have been a good thing. JJ
