Q: What is data usage?
The service plans for the wireless service are based on data usage per month. Anything done on the Internet, such as browsing to a web page, sending an email or watching a YouTube video, will use data from your data plan allowance. Due to differences in video length, website content and etc, there is no exact way to measure how much data is used by each activity. Generally, doing more basic activities, like emails and browsing, will use less data than watching video or listening to online radio.
Q: How do I check my data usage?
TOAST.net provides the following ways to check your usage
- From our
TOAST.net Start Page - a Wireless Usage module that shows your percentage used
- Login to
My Account - Usage details section will show your daily usage
- Email - we send email notifications when you are at 80% of your usage used and continue to send a daily reminder until the end of the month or your usage goes below 80%.
Q: How is data measured?
Data is measured in units; megabytes or gigabytes. When you visit a web page, send an email, watch a movie, or download a photo, your device is sending and or receiving data. Each of these activities requires different amounts of data to be transferred from the Internet to your device. Below are some examples of typical Internet activities and the amount of data downloaded to your device in 1 hour.
Browsing & Email (Facebook, Gmail, etc...): 25MB
Listening to music (Spotify, Apple Music, etc...): 50MB
Watching videos (YouTube, Netflix, etc...): 300MB
Q: What is a gigabyte (GB)?
Most data plans for mobile hotspots are offered in gigabyte increments. One gigabyte (GB) is about 1,000 megabytes (MB). But even understanding how much a megabyte is, how do you equate that to usage? We have found that equating data to time is an easier gauge. The following list provides a rough estimate of how long you can browse the Internet in terms of hours per day, 30 days per month:
1GB/mo. data plan: 1 Hour per day
3GB/mo. data plan: 3 Hours per day
6GB/mo. data plan: 6 Hours per day
Q: How much data do you need?
So now that you understand how much a GB is and how long on average you can use the Internet, how much data do you really need? Our studies have shown that 75% of our customers use less than 1GB, but how far does that go? 1 GB is actually a lot of data use for one person. Consider that 1GB of data transfer roughly equates to:
1 hour of use per day (30 days)
750 web pages
1,500 text emails
2.5 hours of music streaming
1 hour of video streaming
Most mobile hotspots allow for multiple devices to be connected, so make sure to take this into consideration. The more devices you have connected and the more people you have using your hotspot, naturally the more data will be consumed.