So you broke down and decided it's time to get a Blackberry or an iPhone or a Samsung Jack or some other pretty little phone with a full keyboard and what seem to be endless bells and whistles. Should be easy enough, right? Walk into the store, tell the guy you want a phone with a full keyboard, pay for it and walk out, right? Wrong. You get into the store and the guy at the counter tells you that you're going to have to get a data plan to go along with your new smartphone. He goes off about megabytes and gigabytes, which are terms that you never even knew could be applied to phones. All of a sudden you're looking at a chart that says things like "$15/month - 2MB, $25/month - 500MB" or "flex rate plan", and all of a sudden this quick errand doesn't seem so quick anymore.
Or maybe you're a little bit more phone savvy than I'm giving you credit for, and were expecting to have to sign up for a data plan, but being that you've never owned a data device before, you don't have any idea which one you should get. Rogers sure doesn't make it easy to decide either. Prices and plans are constantly changing, and the price of data from Rogers has come down by 12,500% this year so far (from 25$ for 4 MB to 25$ for 500MB).
And if I refuse?
Rogers really, really, really would like you to have a data plan. No one is holding a gun to your face, but if you don't get a data plan they will make you pay out wazoo to obtain most smartphones (with the curious exception of the iPhone), even on a three renewal of your voice plan. On the other hand, if you go ahead and get the data plan, you're likely to end up with a new smartphone for well under the two hundred dollar mark, and often even for free. Not to mention that, you will simply miss out on a lot of cool stuff without a data plan. Trust me, WiFi isn't everywhere. When you're lost and hungry and need Google to give you directions to the nearest chinese food restaurant, you'll be glad you got the data plan.
So how much data will I need?
Data usage on your phone is measured in kilobytes. Any time you send any kind of request to the world for information, be it typing in a URL to go to a website, checking your email, or locating yourself on a map, you are sending a certain number of kilobytes out of your phone. The world replies back with the information you requested, sending kilobytes back to your phone. The kilobytes you send plus the kilobytes you receive equals your total data usage for the month. So you need to figure out how much data you're going to need in a month. Luckily, almost no calculus is required to determine this. It's actually much easier than you might think. It all boils down to two questions:
- What kind of phone are you going to get?
- What would you like to use it for?
BlackBerry
So we're going with a BlackBerry? If so, you have very little to worry about. BlackBerry has an interesting little quirk called BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) that, among doing many other things, processes all of your internet browsing and formats it to work nicely on the BlackBerry browser while simultaneously compressing it to keep your data usage low. You type in a web address, your phone sends the request to the BlackBerry Internet Service servers, they send the request to the world, the world sends back a web page, the servers format it and compress it for your phone, and you get a nice little (and I mean very little) BlackBerry friendly web page. Typically what this means to you is that your data usage is going to be tiny. BlackBerry users rarely exceed 50 MB on a heavy usage month. Once I saw someone use over 100 MB on his BlackBerry Curve. Once. Now if you're getting the BlackBerry Bold, you are likely to use a bit more data, simply because it goes through data faster being that it is a 3G device. That being said, Rogers' entry level data plan (at the time of this writing) gets you up to 500 MB. This should be more than enough for any BlackBerry user (unless you would like to use your phone as a modem for your computer, in which case get as much data as you can afford, and that is a discussion for another time).
Suggested data plan: no more than 500MB for anything but Bold, 500MB-1GB for Bold
iPhone
Some people refuse to own an iPhone on principle. Some hate them to be contrary. Some love Apple more than they love their mothers and are already on their third iPhone since it came out a year and a half ago. Everyone can agree though, that this is one hell of a data intensive device. Right out of the box, we've got your email, your weather, your stocks, your maps, your Safari (the web browser), your iTunes store and your App store. A tour around the App store and you'll have downloaded Last.fm, Movies by Flixter and the Google Mobile App. The phone itself will occasionally connect to the internet without you even asking it to so that it's ready for you with current weather conditions, stocks, and to check for new email. It is not unlikely that you will, perhaps your first month, perhaps a few months in, exceed that 500 MB and start approaching 1GB.
Suggested data plan: 500MB to 2GB
Others (Samsung Jack, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, HTC Touch, etc.)
Rogers has several other smartphones that are not iPhones or BlackBerrys. Most of these are classified as Windows Mobile Devices, but for the purposes of this discussion about data usage, they should be broken down into two categories: 3G phones and non-3G phones. If you are get a 3G phone, such as the Jack or the Q9, it is likely that you will use more data than if you get a Palm Centro or an HTC Touch, which do not run on the 3G network. Why? Because you'll have more time to. 3G offers download speeds at least twice as fast as EDGE, meaning it will take you half as long to use as much data. It's not impossible to use the same amount of data over EDGE, but it would just take a lot longer, and you have things to do. On an EDGE phone, it's pretty unlikely that you will end up going over 500 MB if you plan on doing anything this month other than web browsing. It is easier to use more data on the 3G phone, and if you're getting one you should pick your plan with this in mind. I usually recommend a flex rate plan for 3G smart phones - a plan that simply bumps you up to the next tier if you go over your data amount. It's slightly more per kilobyte, but it offers peace of mind in knowing that you'll never incur large data charges.
Suggested data plan: Flex rate plan for 3G devices (starts at 500MB at a slightly higher price, bumps you up tier levels if you go over)
Email Only
Note that on all smartphones except the iPhone, it is possible to get an email only data plan. These are much cheaper than the other data plans, but as the name suggests, they provide you with email only. No browsing, no YouTube, no weather reports, no GPS, no nothing except email. In most cases, these plans will still afford you the same discount on a data device as any other plan, but in my experience they are just no fun.
Now what?
Don't worry too much about which data plan you pick. Rogers has recently implemented some new systems to prevent people from racking up huge data bills: unlimited data for the first 3 months of use (to gage how much you will use), courtesy text messages when you hit 80% of your allotted data, and a 100$ cap on data bills so if you do go over, you won't rack up 85 grand.
I don't know if you noticed, but I didn't include any pricing. That's because the prices for these things change quite often, and I wouldn't want to set you up for disappointment. So go to www.rogers.com/data to check out what's current, or just talk to someone in a store. We try to be helpful.
TRG
By the way, please don't leave your EDGE Blackberry on for a month and rack up a thousand dollar data bill and sue me. These are only suggestions - you are responsible for keeping track of your own data usage.
So we're going with a BlackBerry? If so, you have very little to worry about. BlackBerry has an interesting little quirk called BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) that, among doing many other things, processes all of your internet browsing and formats it to work nicely on the BlackBerry browser while simultaneously compressing it to keep your data usage low. You type in a web address, your phone sends the request to the BlackBerry Internet Service servers, they send the request to the world, the world sends back a web page, the servers format it and compress it for your phone, and you get a nice little (and I mean very little) BlackBerry friendly web page. Typically what this means to you is that your data usage is going to be tiny. BlackBerry users rarely exceed 50 MB on a heavy usage month. Once I saw someone use over 100 MB on his BlackBerry Curve. Once. Now if you're getting the BlackBerry Bold, you are likely to use a bit more data, simply because it goes through data faster being that it is a 3G device. That being said, Rogers' entry level data plan (at the time of this writing) gets you up to 500 MB. This should be more than enough for any BlackBerry user (unless you would like to use your phone as a modem for your computer, in which case get as much data as you can afford, and that is a discussion for another time).
Suggested data plan: no more than 500MB for anything but Bold, 500MB-1GB for Bold
iPhone
Some people refuse to own an iPhone on principle. Some hate them to be contrary. Some love Apple more than they love their mothers and are already on their third iPhone since it came out a year and a half ago. Everyone can agree though, that this is one hell of a data intensive device. Right out of the box, we've got your email, your weather, your stocks, your maps, your Safari (the web browser), your iTunes store and your App store. A tour around the App store and you'll have downloaded Last.fm, Movies by Flixter and the Google Mobile App. The phone itself will occasionally connect to the internet without you even asking it to so that it's ready for you with current weather conditions, stocks, and to check for new email. It is not unlikely that you will, perhaps your first month, perhaps a few months in, exceed that 500 MB and start approaching 1GB.
Suggested data plan: 500MB to 2GB
Others (Samsung Jack, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, HTC Touch, etc.)
Rogers has several other smartphones that are not iPhones or BlackBerrys. Most of these are classified as Windows Mobile Devices, but for the purposes of this discussion about data usage, they should be broken down into two categories: 3G phones and non-3G phones. If you are get a 3G phone, such as the Jack or the Q9, it is likely that you will use more data than if you get a Palm Centro or an HTC Touch, which do not run on the 3G network. Why? Because you'll have more time to. 3G offers download speeds at least twice as fast as EDGE, meaning it will take you half as long to use as much data. It's not impossible to use the same amount of data over EDGE, but it would just take a lot longer, and you have things to do. On an EDGE phone, it's pretty unlikely that you will end up going over 500 MB if you plan on doing anything this month other than web browsing. It is easier to use more data on the 3G phone, and if you're getting one you should pick your plan with this in mind. I usually recommend a flex rate plan for 3G smart phones - a plan that simply bumps you up to the next tier if you go over your data amount. It's slightly more per kilobyte, but it offers peace of mind in knowing that you'll never incur large data charges.
Suggested data plan: Flex rate plan for 3G devices (starts at 500MB at a slightly higher price, bumps you up tier levels if you go over)
Email Only
Note that on all smartphones except the iPhone, it is possible to get an email only data plan. These are much cheaper than the other data plans, but as the name suggests, they provide you with email only. No browsing, no YouTube, no weather reports, no GPS, no nothing except email. In most cases, these plans will still afford you the same discount on a data device as any other plan, but in my experience they are just no fun.
Now what?
Don't worry too much about which data plan you pick. Rogers has recently implemented some new systems to prevent people from racking up huge data bills: unlimited data for the first 3 months of use (to gage how much you will use), courtesy text messages when you hit 80% of your allotted data, and a 100$ cap on data bills so if you do go over, you won't rack up 85 grand.
I don't know if you noticed, but I didn't include any pricing. That's because the prices for these things change quite often, and I wouldn't want to set you up for disappointment. So go to www.rogers.com/data to check out what's current, or just talk to someone in a store. We try to be helpful.
TRG
By the way, please don't leave your EDGE Blackberry on for a month and rack up a thousand dollar data bill and sue me. These are only suggestions - you are responsible for keeping track of your own data usage.
Posts
Interesting.. How does the Rogers "3 months of unlimited data" work for new subscribers? Do you have an option to adjust your data plan after 3 months based on your usage? If so, would it not be best to choose the cheapest data plan available for the first 3 months and then switch to the most applicable plan once the unlimited trial is over? Is there a cost to changing plans after 3 months of unlimited usage?
ReplyDeleteno cost to change your plan ever. your usage will appear on your bill, and you can also track it from the phone on many phones.
ReplyDeleteFascinating. I just hung up the phone with Rogers, who told me that I absolutely MUST get a data plan with a Blackberry. I don't want or need the data,which is why I Google searched it and found you. Who is wrong, the guy on the phone or you???
ReplyDelete