I am heading to Florida on a bit of business next month and will extend it by a few days to take in some sun and surf, which leads me to reviewing my iPhone and it's data and voice plan for US travel.
It turns out to be pretty expensive to operate an iPhone outside of Canada... at least a Canadian phone. $1.45 per minute (soon to be $1.75) voice, $0.60 per text and $3 per MB of data (soon to be $5). Ouch! At least there are no separate roaming fees, although now they are included in the per use fees and likely end up costing more as a result. I am certain that making roaming fees "included" makes the mobility companies more money in the long run or they wouldn't have done it.
There are a couple of levels of plans, of course. $10, $20 voice and text plans and a text only $40 unlimited plan. and a $10 dataplan. I ran a quick bit of math to see where the break points are with various plans. Voice is just plain expensive no matter the plan, so I figure that I will just skip it altogether and make calls on a calling card from wherever I need.
Text plans, other than the no fee pay per use, all cost the same at the 100 message mark, $40. At this point it makes the most sense to opt in for the $40 unlimited. If I end up gone for a week there's no way I'll use less than that.
The next kicker is the data usage.
I've checked my usage and found it not out to lunch, I have 6GB per month and barely use 1GB. I pared that down in the last few days to see what I might expect in a minimalist usage mode and I can get about 500KB-1MB per day. At $3 per MB, and $5 per MB next month, that adds up fast enough yet. If I need it, well, I need it... but how much is need and how much is convenience? Opting for the $10 plan to get $1 per MB makes perfect sense. Although I MIGHT be able to keep usage down to 1MB per day that still runs $30 in fees for a week (the $5 rate kicks in while I am there) compared to $17 cost with the plan. Of course I may end up using more.
I went through a check list of items that use data, whether I intend to or not, then added the peripheral usages that are automatic and intentional then added the straight browsing and imessage texting etc.
There's a setting that sends usage data somewhere, location settings that do the same thing to "optimize" the various applications, maps, siri, compass etc. I left all off except for the location service for the camera. It sends about 2KB per picture to mark date time and location for the picture... seeing as I might like to mark various shots while in Florida I will leave that on. I am planning to use a real camera as well so the phone shots will be a few spur of the moment to catch something quickly shots.
Some automated data might be various apps updated themselves when opened or edited. ToDo, calendar and mail apps do this but have settings that can be set for manual only... except the calendar as it is a Google calendar but I don't think it uses much data unless I make a change, or someone sharing a schedule makes one perhaps.
Then there is browsing. Even just doing a simple map lookup and zooming in to get main street names will use 5MB. Better to buy an area map or take some screen shots of areas that I know I will be in ahead of time or while on hotel WiFi.
I found that even just checking the usage without doing anything else runs 2 - 4 KB per check.
Of course all of the cellular data can be shut off in the general heading in network settings and WiFi is the only data channel.
Time to go old school and use the phone as a communications device rather than a computer replacement. It's amazing how quickly we (I) become accustomed to just pulling out he phone and looking up things. It does save time as opposed to opening the laptop or sitting down at the PC.
Jeff.
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